


The Ghosts that We Knew

by UnholyNightmare



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ash is having a real bad time, But Max is the BEST, Drug Use, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Infertility, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Consensual Bondage, On the Run, Post-Apocalypse, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyNightmare/pseuds/UnholyNightmare
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, Ash is on the run disguised as a Beta, hiding from everyone he finds, trying desperately to stay alive.When he runs out of suppressants that are hiding his Omega-Status, he's forced back down into the city in search of more. Unfortunately, there are others there too--mercenaries who's job is to seek out hiding omegas and round them up.When Ash finds himself captured, he's forced back to a massive compound run by a nasty Alpha by the name of Dino Golzine. There's no way out, that he can see, and the only person who seems to be willing to help is a quiet doctor named Max.But Max is an alpha too, and Ash has no plans to trust him anytime soon.
Relationships: Dino Golzine/Ash Lynx, Frederick Arthur/Ash Lynx, Max Lobo & Ash Lynx, Max Lobo/Ash Lynx
Comments: 12
Kudos: 65
Collections: The Not-Asheiji Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags. This is a ***very*** dark fic, and awful things will happen to Ash before it gets better.
> 
> Incredible art by:  
> [Salmon](twitter.com/sushisalmon95)  
> [Trickster](https://twitter.com/tricksterdraws)
> 
> Big thank you to the NotAshEiji Bang for a fun event!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and as always, I hope you enjoy <3

He was running so hard he thought his lungs might burst, but still Ash pushed on, darting through the streets, dashing through alleyways and abandoned buildings, not daring to look behind, knowing that they were there, they were _right_ there.

This had been a horrible idea.

He’d come into the city in the eerie early morning, silence following him as he moved through the dead streets. Two years, and the smothering quiet still left him unnerved.

The end of the world had come in the form of an asteroid, though, unlike their Cretaceous counterparts, the humans had fair warning. It was enough to save humanity.

Barely.

New York City was full of fallout shelters, and Ash had been one of the lucky ones. Children were given priority, so at age 16, he’d had a bed, a shower, and even a working sewage system. There was food and fresh water, and compared to roughing it outside the city limits? It was paradise.

Until his luck ran out. 

Until his hidden bag of suppressants came up missing, and he had nothing to replace them with.

Because despite the apocalypse coming, and despite humanity being all but destroyed, the survivors were still very much human and very much violent as they became consumed by their basic instincts.

Alpha.

Beta.

Omega.

Alphas ruled. Betas followed. Omegas were used. They were hunted--sold to breeders. Kept as slaves. In the worst of the worst facilities, they were kept tied down to a bed, used for nothing but bodies for alphas. They were bred over and over and over, until they died.

And fuck if that was going to happen to Ash.

He stopped running for a moment, bending over his knees to try and catch his breath, to try and stop gasping. Every inhalation was loud in his ears, every exhalation like he was choking. 

And he was. 

There was no water. Only dust and dirt and not enough oxygen. His lungs were on the brink of collapse and if he didn’t get back to his motorcycle where his extra gas mask was stowed, he was going to pass out. Airsickness wasn’t a joke—he needed to move. 

He’d gone into the town on a hunch. Passing by last night, it looked more dust covered than most—more abandoned, more dead. This could mean any number of things. If he were lucky, it might mean that the people who lived here were poorer than in other towns, and did not have escape plans at the ready when the asteroid hit. It might mean that stores still remained unplundered. 

It might mean that a pharmacy may still have a hidden stash of suppressants.

And so he’d gone—leaving his bike three miles out in the woods—carefully winding through the streets on nothing but a hunch. 

He’d found them. He’d found enough suppressants to get him comfortably through the next six months.

And then he’d realized he was being followed. 

Mercenaries.

_Omega Hunters._

Another sickening quiver of anxiety ran down his stomach.

They’d made quick work of blocking all his exits, cornering him in every direction. He couldn’t get back to the bike, he couldn’t get back any way he came, and so he’d run as far and as fast as his legs would carry him.

They were still after him now. He could smell them on the wind—at least four Betas and an Alpha. He was gasping in too much CO2; he couldn’t control it anymore, and, as if on cue, his stomach gave one awful lurch before he was puking his guts out onto the ground—bile mixing with dust, thick and muddy. 

“Fuck,” he moaned, wiping a hand over his mouth, trying to force his legs to keep moving.

Airsick.

Without access to clean oxygen soon, he was going to pass out.

He stumbled up the dirt road, and turned down a smaller street, trying to slow down enough to even out his breathing, but move fast enough to get ahead of– 

“Hey, beautiful.”

Ash froze.

The man had appeared out of nowhere—no scent on the wind, not a sound at all. He walked toward Ash now, hand outstretched as though trying to comfort a wild animal. 

Ash wasn’t falling for that shit. 

“Back the fuck off,” he snarled. He reached for his side, as though reaching for a pistol.

He didn’t have a pistol.

He’d run out of ammunition months ago, and finding ammo was even more difficult than finding suppressants. Far more people wanted it, far more people scavenged for it. 

Still, the man paused for a moment, genuinely unsure. Then a smile broke out on his face, and he looked up—just past Ash.

Ash smelled him in that instant—the alpha—and every nerve in his body flared, screaming for him to flee.

“Well. What do we have here?” The alpha’s voice was sickly sweet, and Ash heard footfalls as he stepped forward, walking a wide circle around Ash and settling right in front of him. His smile was a jagged slice across his face, and his eyes were glinting in the sun, predatory and terrifying.

 _Wrong, wrong, wrong_. Ash’s body screamed with it.

The first man, the beta, was creeping closer on Ash’s other side, and despite the danger signs all around him, Ash tore his eyes away from the alpha to look. More of them appeared in the corner of his vision, walking up the dusty street, proud, arrogant, armed. 

“Hey, Arthur!” 

The alpha grunted in response, but didn’t move at all.

“He’s just a beta. What d’ya want us to do with him?”

There was no escape route. They’d all caught him unawares, moving in as the wind had switched, fooling him into thinking he was safe. Ash crouched down, not taking his eyes off of the approaching men, but feeling around in the dirt for a rock, or something hard, something he could throw. His bag was heavy on his shoulder, filled with the incriminating suppressants, but he couldn’t drop it. If they found it, if they even so much as suspected him to be an omega, he’d never escape. They wouldn’t stop hunting him until he was caught.

His fingers closed over a large rock, a perfect rock, round and heavy in the palm of his hand. He slowly stood, keeping the alpha, _Arthur_ , in his periphery. 

It was quiet. Too quiet. The men advanced, and the wind blew, and for just a moment there was a stillness within him. 

Then he threw himself upright and flung the rock, hitting the first beta right in the eye.

The man cursed immediately, and there were shouts of “Cain! Cain!” but Ash didn’t stick around long enough to see what damage he’d caused. He jolted forward and ran as fast as he could. His breathing came in short gasps, his legs burned with the sudden adrenaline, and he pushed forward, faster and faster, turning down an alleyway , then taking another, twisting and turning his way through the buildings and—

Dead end.

“Oh fuck,” he gasped, throwing himself down behind an abandoned dumpster. “Oh fuck, oh fuck—” he couldn’t get in enough air; he was close to retching again. He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying desperately to contain the sounds he was making. It might work. It might, it could, it…

His last dose had been three days ago. They were supposed to last 5 days at a time, but it wasn’t a perfect science. Depending on how close you were to a heat, they could fade faster and flicker out, leaving the omega in question fucked. He took them every three days just to be safe. They blocked his scent; they all but guaranteed a heat wouldn’t happen, and if enough built up in your system, then they were said to be even better, even stronger. They could block out scent for weeks at a time.

Of course there were reasons omegas didn’t do this. There were reasons that, before the apocalypse, suppressant abuse was illegal. 

Abuse over a long enough period of time could lead to cauterizing omega sex organs, causing infertility. It could lead to heart failure. 

It could lead to death.

But being caught by a group of omega hunters was a fate far worse than death.

Ash bit his lip, trying not to think about what might happen if they found him. He’d popped a dose in the abandoned pharmacy already so he’d have to hope that it was working—that there wasn’t a gap in the coverage. _I caught them by surprise. I gained some ground. There’s no reason they’ll come down this alley, there’s no reason they’ll smell anything on the air..._

He squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as he could, pulling his knees to his chest to make himself as small as humanly possible, and waited.

It didn’t take long before he heard the sounds of footsteps. One of them had thought to check the alleyway, and another was coming down this last turn now.

 _Please see the dead end. Please keep going. Please don’t come in, please don’t come in, please don’t come in_. His hands were starting to shake at his sides and the anxiety, the anticipation of what might happen next was eating him alive. 

The footsteps continued on, past the entrance to the dead-end-alley, and for just a moment, Ash’s breathing slowed, relief palpable. 

Then they stopped again—silent. A harsh gust of wind blew down the pathway, and suddenly Ash could smell him. 

Arthur. _Alpha._

Ash squinted his eyes closed, trying to will his breathing to slow, trying to make himself smaller, trying to imagine himself as nothing at all. 

There was the smallest moment where he thought it worked, that they wouldn’t notice. But then the footsteps started again, coming closer, closer, closer.

He didn’t know what to do. He was utterly trapped at this point, a rabbit in a cage. There was nowhere to go, there was nowhere to run, there was no weapon to fight with and this was an _alpha_.

But it was an alpha who hadn’t smelled him yet. Ash had been less than ten feet from him, and Arthur hadn’t made a comment. They didn’t know. They thought he was a beta, it was going to be alright. He could reason with them. He could offer to join up with them and slip off in the dead of night. He could surrender, and maybe they wouldn’t check his bags.

 _Stupid_ , his mind hissed. 

“Come out, little kitten,” Arthur crooned, getting closer and closer with every moment. “I know you’re here, why don’t you come out and play?”

Ash wanted nothing more than to jump up and put a bullet straight through his fucking head. Instead, he pressed his hand even harder against his mouth, trying to stifle any sound at all. 

“Is that your heart I hear?” Arthur purred. “Fast, so fast. You’re scared, kitten. Come out!”

There was no way he could hear Ash’s heart. He was full of shit, just another mercenary who though far too highly of himself. 

“Come out!”

That twirling, lilting voice suddenly was angry and full of knives. Ash shook his head, trying to throw it out of his subconscious. _Don’t move,_ he ordered his body. _Don’t move._

He opened his eyes, watching the dirt right in front of his feet. His best chance was surprise. He needed to wait for the shadow of that man, Arthur, to cross his vision and then he’d slam up, knee him in the balls, and bolt. 

“Cain might lose his eye, kitten,” Arthur continued. There were a few more footsteps, and then Arthur stopped again, just shy of the edge of the dumpster. “You’re going to pay for that.”

There was anger brewing in the alpha’s voice, deep and unsettling. He was furious, and he wasn’t moving. His voice sounded as though it were in exactly the same place. Ash’s heart was beating faster and faster, loud in his ears. _Just walk,_ he begged silently. _Please just walk. A few steps more._

Ash steadied himself, fingertips splayed on the ground, and readied himself to jump.

There was a clicking sound from above him and he looked up into the barrel of a semi-automatic shotgun.

“Got him, boss.” The owner of the gun smiled down at Ash—a cold and serpent like thing. “Don’t you fucking try anything. Drop the bag. Hands up. And walk.”

He was so stupid. He was so, so stupid. He hadn’t thought once to look up. To check the tops of the walls that caged him in. They’d gone up the other side of the alley, climbed silently to the top of the wall, and watched him as he cowered like a goddamn animal. Ash stood slowly and tried to breath as steadily as possible. He couldn’t panic. He couldn’t start sucking in carbon dioxide again or he’d pass out. He very purposely didn’t drop the bag, but he raised his hands, carefully putting them behind his head, as the man with the shotgun looked on.

Arthur came into view then, grinning evilly. His blond hair was caked with dirt, his fatigues looked worn and tired, but his blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “Found you,” he said. He reached a hand out and cupped Ash’s chin. “You’re awful pretty for a beta.”

Ash spit at him. 

Nothing happened for a moment, and then Arthur began to laugh—a hideous, grating thing. “Oh, boy. This is gonna be fun.” He pushed forward into Ash’s space, forcing Ash back further and further until he hit the brick wall. Then he fisted a hand through Ash’s hair, yanked his head sharply down, and scented him—long and hard, nose pressing painfully into the gland.

Ash tried to swallow but fear was too thick in his throat. He stopped breathing, he stopped moving, he squinted his eyes closed as hard as he could and focused on not letting his hands shake.

Eventually, Arthur drew back. “Beta,” he murmured, watching Ash’s face for confirmation.

Ash let go of the breath he was holding, careful not to let it completely out in a whoosh of sound. “I came to town looking for food,” he started, trying out the simple lie he’d crafted earlier. “I—”

Arthur grabbed the back from him, ripping it off his shoulder before opening it. “Where’s the omega?” He growled. His eyes were suddenly ice blue again—feral. 

“I…”

“Where’s it hiding?”

“There’s not…I didn’t…” his mind was slow from lack of oxygen and he shook his head once, trying to clear it. “I was gonna sell them.”

“Fuck no, you weren’t. Single beta like you? Out on your own? You need connections for this shit. You weren’t selling a goddamn thing.” Arthur looked up and nodded his head, and there was a click of the shotgun—loud enough for Ash to flinch. 

“I didn’t know—”

“Where. Is. The. Omega.”

There was no right answer. There was nothing he could say that was going to end in him walking away from this. There was only once choice, and as stupid as it was, Ash took it.

He grabbed the bag out of Arthur’s hands, rammed the heel of his hand into Arthur’s neck as hard as he can, then ran.

The shot rang out immediately, loud enough that he lost hearing in both ears for a moment. There was ringing, and there was dizziness, and then there was pain.

So much pain. 

Ash slumped against the far wall, dropping the bag and pressing his right hand against his left shoulder. It came away bloody, dripping dark red. “Oh fuck,” he muttered, turning enough to get his back to the wall. Everything was swaying in his vision, he couldn’t see straight, he couldn’t hear and that almost seemed the worst of anything. There were people moving, people with guns advancing on him, barrels pointed directly at him, but with every blink of his eyes they swam more and more.

He pressed his hand back into his shoulder with a loud gasp of pain, and tried to keep upright against the wall. 

It hurt.

It hurt so much worse than he’d ever imagined a gunshot wound would. Someone reached for him—grabbed the collar of his t-shirt and shook him—and his shoulder screamed, or maybe he screamed, he didn’t know anymore, everything was dark.

“…name, Golzine’s gonna…”

“…get him up, get him back to the truck…”

He was hearing phrases of things now, the ringing dissipating, but all he could smell was Alpha was that…that Arthur…

Someone pulled him from the wall and he puked again, bile, nothing more, but it burned his throat and he could hear himself gasping for air.

“Fucking shit…on my shoes…gonna kill him—”

He fell forward, or maybe he was pushed forward, or maybe this was all a dream, maybe he was dreaming and he’d wake up and his mom would make him breakfast—peanut butter on toast, nothing special—and he’d wake up and someone would love him and—

Someone grabbed him by the arm, and he screamed once, sucking in a deep breath of foul air.

He passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to those of you reading <3 <3 <3
> 
> There is some incredible artwork in this chapter!
> 
> 1\. [Trickster](https://twitter.com/tricksterdraws)  
> 2\. [Salmon](twitter.com/sushisalmon95)  
> Please leave them some love because they were so fantastic to work with and did such an incredible job of capturing the scenes!!!

There was something pinching against his arm and it was uncomfortable, it was awful, he wanted to roll over but…

“Morning.”

Ash tried to blink his eyes open but they were so heavy. “Uh…” he tried, his tongue thick in his mouth.

“It’s okay. Don’t move too much, alright?”

 _That_ set alarm bells off in his head, and he immediately forced eyes open and tried to sit up.

Pain.

“Oh fuck,” he groaned, falling back down against the bed. He hurt. He hurt everywhere, but mostly he hurt in his shoulder—the kind of hurt that was hot knives, piercing and brutal. The kind of hurt that made him want to cry.

“Don’t move, kid.”

There were hands on him now, gentle and light, but then they moved toward that nexus of pain and Ash threw his head to the side, growling.

“Okay!” The newcomer said.

His hands disappeared and Ash managed to swallow. He could smell him though. An almond like bitterness that cut through the air. Another fucking alpha.

“It’s going to hurt for a while. I’m sorry—we don’t have the best painkillers here and…well…I don’t think they’d use them on you.”

This last bit was mumbled, quiet and secretive, and Ash wondered if he were even meant to hear it. “Where am I?” he asked. His voice sounded swollen and slow in his ears, and he grimaced again at the swell of nausea that accompanied his movement.

“Well…”

Then nothing. Silence. Ash opened his eyes and looked, really looked around himself for a moment. He seemed to be in some sort of rugged hospital bed. The room was dusty and brown, like everything else on this planet, but there was a small window—about 2 by 4—that let a bit of artificial light in, high up on the far wall. If he had to guess, he’d put them somewhere underground, probably in someone’s bunker system.

It was an awfully nice bunker system though, if it boasted medical facilities. He was hooked up to an IV, and, as if suddenly brought on by seeing the thing, he could feel the pinch of the needle on the back of his hand.

“How much do you remember?” The man asked him.

He was dressed in fatigues on bottom, just a black tank on top, but he had a clipboard in his hand and a stethoscope around his neck. His reddish blond hair fell across his brow, messy and unkempt, and he smiled down at Ash as though he were maybe, actually concerned.

“Where the fuck am I?” Ash asked again.

The man sighed, running a hand through his hair and causing it to fall back even messier in its stead. “Well. That’s...we’ll get there, alright? I’m Max, and—”

Ash began pushing himself up again, inhaling sharply with pain, but not fucking sticking around any longer. He pulled the IV from the back of his hand and threw it against the floor.

“Wait, don’t…shit. Don’t do that, please?” Max asked, his eyes actually worried.

“Where am I?” His breathing was starting to come fast and hard, and he was having trouble getting enough air. “Where am I? What—” Ash flinched at the pull in his shoulder again, but he pushed his right hand against it. “Where am I?” He was getting more desperate with every iteration of it, he thought he was going to pass out.

“ _Corsica_ ,” Max said, as if that meant a goddamn thing. He looked at Ash, questioning with only a glance, before putting his hands on Ash’s shoulders and helping him lay back down. “Base camp. Arthur and his gang brought you in late last night. You had a bullet to the shoulder. I operated as best I could,” he shrugged then, looking younger, almost apologetic. “I’m sorry. I was an army medic back pre-apocalypse but I’m not the best in emergency surgery. I got the bullet out though. You’ll hopefully regain full use of your left arm.”

 _The bag_ , Ash though. _Oh god, where are the suppressants, oh my god, oh my god._ He watched Max, trying not to let his panic show. It had only been a day that he was out. He still had two more before he needed to re-up his dose. Arthur thought he was a beta so wherever the fuck Corsica was, he would have reported that to whoever was in charge. 2 days. It was nothing, but he tried not to let his panic show. “Okay,” he offered. “Thanks. I’ll get out of your hair then—”

“There’s more,” Max said. His fingers were tangled in each other, twisting and moving constantly. “The leader of the base is a man named Dino Golzine. You might have heard of him?”

Ash had been on the run for two years and he wasn’t exactly keeping up with the most recent of headlines. His eyes narrowed though, before he shook his head no.

“Well…you came in with a large quantity of omega suppressants—”

“They were for a friend,” Ash grit out.

“Right,” Max said, his nose wrinkling. “Well, Golzine is…he’s particular about who or what comes in the compound. He asked for an internal exam to be done—”

“What?” Ash flew up, pain stabbing at him, but instinct screaming. “You what?”

“I’m so sorry, I did it while you were under for the surgery—”

  


_No. No, no, no, no._ Ash kicked his legs out, catching Max right in the gut. He didn’t wait to see if it took him out, if it even was enough to cause him any pain at all. He pushed himself up and off the hospital bed, noting with rising panic the thin hospital robe that was tied around him. There was nothing near him he could use as a weapon. Nothing at all, but he had to get the fuck out of here as soon as he could. Max was coming towards him, hands held up as though trying to calm him, but his teeth were bared, like the fucking alpha he was. “Fuck you,” Ash yelled, then he grabbed the IV pole and managed to lift it for the barest moment before his arm shrieked in pain and it dropped from his grip. “Fuck you,” he moaned, grabbing at his shoulder.

His hand came away wet—blood was already soaking through the bandages again. Max was just standing, looking at him with this sad, lost, gaze. Pity.

Ash wanted to kill him. “Move,” he yelled. “Move, or I swear to god, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Kid—”

And then Ash saw it. The slight lump in the side pocket of Max's pants, that he was reaching for. A handheld device with a small, red button. “Don’t,” he cried, launching himself at Max.

He landed a punch, then a second, and it seemed like Max wasn’t even fighting back at all, wasn’t trying, but then there were men in the room, hauling him off, yanking him back. Someone had their arm around his throat, pulling back hard enough that Ash choked with it.

“Stop!”

He heard it, faint against the scrabbling of men near him. There were hands all over him, pulling him and wrestling him to the ground. He was kicking, and throwing himself every which way, and his vision was starting to go spotty with the chokehold—

“Stop!”

Command voice. Ash felt it deep within him, more than he’d ever felt anything in his life. He tried to press past it, he should have been able to press past it. There was something wrong, something horribly wrong, because he obeyed. He stopped. He didn’t move.

The other men did the same, and even though they were right against him, holding him down, he couldn’t smell anything. Betas. They’d heard the command from an alpha as well and bent with it.

“Stop,” Max said again, kinder this time.

Ash wanted to rip his throat out. Get close enough, get his nose up against that scent gland, and then sink his teeth in.

“It’s alright,” Max was saying to the men. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have alerted you. I have it under control.”

“Boss sure as fuck doesn’t think so.”

It was the beta with his elbow around Ash’s throat. There was nothing for a moment, and then…

A growl. Feral and animalistic and full of power. Ash curled in on himself, making himself small as possible, not even considering the awful reason why.

The man at his back let go with a laugh. “Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly everyone let go again, everyone stood, everyone marched from Ash’s prone body as though they were militia, dependent on command, rife with the instinctual power rankings.

And then there was quiet again. Nothing but him, and the doctor. Max.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Ash spared a look up at him, surprised to see the conflict in his face.

“Can I help you back into bed? You really need fluids right now, kid. You really gotta take ‘em while you can get ‘em. Things are…” he swallowed, looking down at the dust covered floor. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Things are what?” Ash ground out, a full body tremor running through him. He hurt. He hurt so bad he wanted to cry with it, but he couldn’t, he needed to get out of here. He felt sick, and wrong, and still, he couldn’t move from the floor from the power of that command, of that ‘Stop!”

“Not good,” Max whispered. He knelt down in front of Ash, reaching out and letting a finger stroke just the top of Ash’s hand.

 _Fuck off_ , Ash wanted to say. _Fuck you. Fuck this. I want to go home._

“I know,” Max said, apologetically. “I know.”

Ash realized he’d spoken that last bit out loud and it was so shameful, he needed to be strong, he had to stay strong that was only way to survive.

“Come on,” Max said, wrapping his fingers around Ash’s wrist.

Ash still couldn’t move. It wasn’t a command and so he was still stuck, still humiliatingly useless. This had never happened before. He’d never been frozen like this, scared and nervous and unable to move a single muscle.

Max seemed to understand though. He bit his lip, as though thinking for a moment, then repeated. _“Come on.”_

It was deep. Bone deep. And Ash finally felt his limbs begin to move. “I hate you,” he said, trying to keep himself from trembling. Everything was wrong. Swallowing was painful, and he flinched with it, tongue feeling at his teeth, thick and heavy.

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Max said again, helping him up, helping him over to the bed. He picked up the IV stand, set it back up again, then slowly began the process of hooking Ash back up to it.

The bandages at his shoulder were blotted red with blood, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered under that command. “I need to go home,” Ash whispered.

“You’re an omega.”

It was blunt. Loud. Impossible to ignore, and Ash bit his lip. “I’m not. They were for a friend.”

“Kid.”

There were tears brimming in his eyes, but Ash shook his head, refusing. “They were for a friend.” He heard the sigh from Max, loud and obnoxious.

“Do you have a name at least? Can I call you something other than kid?”

“Fuck you.”

“Nice. Alright. Kid? I already did the internal. I’m sorry. Golzine’s coming for you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Look, I don’t have a lot of time to warn you about this, alright? This compound? Corsica? It’s….there’s…”

He appeared to be struggling with saying it, but Ash didn’t care anymore. “Fuck you.” It was all he could say. There was nothing else in him.

“There’s a breeding barn, here. ”

He was cold. He was cold, and he wanted to puke, and he was so, so, so terrified. His heart rate picked up, beating against his chest, hard and furious and he tried to breath, but it hurt, everything hurt—

“Kid...shit. I’m sorry. I’ll do everything I can for you but…”

“Did you tell them?” Ash choked out. “Please. Please, I’ll do anything for you, please let me go.” He was crying now. It was humiliating, tears hot against his cheeks. “Please, _Max_.” He was giving in. He didn’t need to be strong, he just needed to escape and he’d do anything–

“I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, well. I don’t know if you knew this already or not, but you’re barren.”

He didn’t know that.

And even though there was no way in hell he had the resources in a post-apocalyptic world to raise pups, and even though right now he was in some fucking base, surrounded by vicious alphas who wanted nothing more than to breed him, and breed him again, and breed him again after that, there was still a feral, animal instinct that shot through him, sharp as a knife, at Max’s words.

“I suspected it from the suppressant build-up in your system. But…you’re definitely barren.”

Ash bit his lip and looked to the small window, trying to control the roiling emotions at those words. There was nothing left. There was no reason to stay alive. They knew, and they had him, and there was nothing fucking for him in this world.

“Look,” Max was saying. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Fuck you.”

“I can’t…I can’t keep calling you kid, alright?”

“Fuck you.”

“They’re just going to give you a number.”

Max sounded desperate now, and Ash turned back to look at him. There was a flush rising up his neck, from underneath the black tanktop and he scratched at it, as though suddenly uncomfortable.

“I mean…shit. I don’t know what they plan to do with you yet. But…”

“It’s Ash.” Then he turned right back to the window.

“Okay. Okay, good, yeah, good Ash.”

The way he said it made the hairs on the back of Ash’s neck prickle, and he hated it, he hated how much he wanted to hear his name on Max’s lips again. “What did you do to me?” He asked instead, quiet and careful.

“Umm, well—”

“Besides the fucking non-consensual internal exam. What did you do to me.” The question fell from his lips so monotonous in its inflection that it sounded more of a statement.

Max’s eyebrows raised at his words, but picked up his clipboard again and made a large show of studying it. “Golzine ordered you flushed. After he found out about your secondary gender.”

Ash bit his lip, and drew in a deep breath, trying to push the anger and the fear down as far as he possibly could. “What does that mean?” he asked, proud that there was only the smallest waver in his words.

“Umm, flushed. Well, you’ve been on suppressants for some time now. They’ve built up a lot in your system. And that…well I guess it’s a good thing if you’re trying to hide—trying to skate under the radar. But it can be really damaging for you. Can cause stroke, or heart attack, or hemorrhaging. There’s a reason they are illegal, you know?”

“Being forced down onto a table and bred over and over again isn’t any fucking better than a stroke!” He fisted a hand in the blankets, trying to control himself. The tears were coming harder now, and he hated it, he hated looking weak in front of everyone, but certainly in front of this fucking alpha doctor who smelled like almonds, and a bit like moss, and definitely like the earth after it rained and…Ash shook his head hard, trying to focus. “What the fuck is flushed.”

“Suppressants are made of chemicals that bind to your body’s pheremones and block them, suppress them if you will. I administered an analeptic of sorts. It…well it’s a healing agent. Flushes out your system of anything harmful. Including the suppressants.”

“Oh fuck no,” Ash whispered.

“It will probably take a couple of days yet, but you might be feeling some effects already.”

“No—”

“Ash, it’s alright. It’s your body’s natural responses taking over. You’ve—”

“I’m going into heat.” Saying it was so much worse, made it so much more real. The scent of Max in the room, the way he was too hot, his emotions being this high, this close to the surface. “Oh my god, you’re triggering a heat?”

“Ash, when’s the last time you had a heat? I need to know, because it will help me calculate out your dosage and—”

“No. No, you’ve gotta let me out of here.” It was all too much. The room was closing in on him, it was too small, there was nowhere to go, _there was nowhere to go_! “I need to get out of here now.” The communication device was discarded on the bedside table, and if he moved fast enough, he could get to it first.

“Please don’t do it, Ash,” Max said. “I can smell your desperation. I can see the way you just tensed looking—” he stepped forward and grabbed it from the table “—at this.”

“I hate you.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, and I wish I didn’t have to do this to you, Ash.”

There it was again, that softness on his name, like the vowels were round, like Max’s mouth was gentle with the shape of him. _Get it together._ He didn’t have time for this shit.“Then why are you? Doing it? You don’t fucking have to!” He sat up, then immediately groaned out loud, the pain in his shoulder intensifying again, enough to make his vision swim. “Why the fuck would you do this to us? You’re no better than those hunters who brought me in, or the fucking asshole who you report to. Why would you do this?”

Max grimaced at this, managing to look equal parts guilty, and irritated. The way Ash was feeling now, the way he’d stilled at that command earlier, already, all Max had to do was growl at him and he’d probably drop it, probably find himself silent and begging the alpha’s forgiveness. “Fuck!” Ash screamed. “Why?”

“They...look.” Max said, voice suddenly ice cold, eyes like daggers staring him down. “You don’t know everything. Okay? They took something of mine and…” he paused. Dragged in a deep breath and seemed to center. “So I apologize that it has to be this way, but it’s _going_ to be this way.”

It wasn’t command voice, but it was hard and terrifying, and Ash shuddered—a full body flinch. “I can’t stay here,” he tried, voice cracking. “I can’t—”

“Then I’m going to have to chain you to the bed. I’d really rather not do that. You seem like a nice kid, I’m sorry your luck ran out. But you’re going to need to stay here.”

There was a knock at the door then, and Max turned to open it.

Ash froze as soon as the man stepped in.

Arthur.

_Arthur._

Brushing past Max without even glancing at him, he came to a stop above Ash—a disgusting grin on his face.

He smelled terrible. It was only a day ago that he’d cornered Ash behind the dumpster, and he’d had a smell of Alpha on him, but not this bad. It was rank, it was ozone and musk, and Ash grimaced, forcing himself to meet Arthur’s gaze and not cower back.

“Hello, kitten. What a surprise it was to find out that you weren’t lying to me! Didn’t have a little omega friend after all.” His grin turned up even further, exposing his fangs, and he made a show of licking his lips slowly—so slowly.

Ash didn’t say a word. Just glared.

“I didn't smell it on you then," he said, leaning in closer. "I smell you now though.” Arthur grinned. “You smell ripe.” And with that, Arthur bent down over the bed, fisting a hand through Ash’s hair and forcing his head up, exposing his neck.

Ash tried to move—tried to throw a punch, but Arthur just moved his hand on top of Ash’s injured shoulder, and let his weight down.

He didn’t scream. Ash prided himself on that. His intake of breath was so sudden though, so sharp with pain that his head swam with dizziness.

“Arthur!” Max yelled, from somewhere far away.

“Shut up,” Arthur called over his shoulder, then he turned his attention back to Ash, nuzzling his nose against Ash’s neck for just a moment before a stripe up his throat. “Oh, you taste good, kitten,” he purred against Ash’s ear. “Boss is pretty happy we found you, you know. Happy enough that I might get a taste of you. As a reward.”

He took his hand off of the injured shoulder, and Ash tried to breath, his eyes blinking away unshed tears. He wanted to fight but every nerve in his body was screaming to run, to hide, to cower.

“You have such pretty green eyes,” Arthur hissed. He relaxed his grip in Ash’s hair, but bent even closer still, that grin fading a little, pulling down into a scowl. “You fucked with my boys. Don’t think I’m going to fucking forget that, you little omega bitch.”

“Arthur!”

Max was there suddenly, holding back just enough that Ash could tell he wasn’t in control of this, there was nothing he could actually do. Still, Arthur drew back, winking once at Ash before turning to address the doctor.

“Golzine wants him out of here.”

“He just came from surgery not three hours ago. He’s not going anywhere yet.”

“You wanna take it up with the boss?”

“No…I…” Max was fumbling with something and Ash could see the corner of the clipboard, could see him flipping through pages. “Look. If you want him to die of infection, be my guest. He needs at least a night here. And the suppressants still haven’t been fully flushed from his system. You want me to act as the compound’s doctor? Fucking fine. Listen to me when I have a patient.”

Arthur growled then, and it went straight through Ash’s core. He fought with everything he had not to curl up and whimper. _You’re stronger than this,_ his brain supplied. _Fight it!_ At the foot of the bed, Max and Arthur were glaring at each other, tension flooding both their bodies. Arthur slowly circled around Max while Max stayed perfectly still. He clearly wasn’t going to fight, but he also seemed unwilling to give any ground.

“Fine,” Arthur spat. “You’ll have your day.” Then, looking at Ash once more, rabid rage reflecting in his eyes, he snarled. “Enjoy your stay, you omega cunt.”

He flung open the door and left, but still his scent tangled in the air of the room.

Max waited for a minute, watching as though expecting someone else to burst through the room, as though expecting he was going to have to fight harder. Finally, he sighed, shoulders relaxing.

It was immediate, that drop in tension in the room. Ash could feel it in his stomach, and this? Was this what it was going to be like off the fucking drugs? Feeling everything, tasting everything, smelling everything. Being afraid…being constantly afraid…

“How long since your last heat?” Max asked.

All the friendliness was gone from his voice, there was no concern, no worry, no pity. It was just blank. A statement of inflection-less words.

Ash threw his head back against the pillow and refused to answer.

“How long since your last heat?”

There was a sudden pulling, a desire to answer, a need to please alpha, to please him now. “Fuck you,” Ash ground out. “Don’t fucking do that.”

Max swore, then suddenly threw the clipboard against the wall and it hit with a sharp clatter of sound, before falling down. “Fuck it. I can call Arthur right back in here. Let him take you down to the boss.”

“You won’t.” Ash said it, but he had no idea if it was true or not. Something had changed during that power play between the two alphas—something horrible and dark. Max was scary now—one of _them_.

“How. Long.”

Throwing his free arm up to cover his eyes, Ash shuddered, trying not to cry. “I don’t know.” His voice was tinny, and weak in his ears. “Never. Or once, I guess. When I was sixteen. Not a full one though.” He sounded pathetic. He sounded like he was giving up.

Maybe he was.

“Oh, fuck me, kid. Never?”

He wasn’t using Ash’s name anymore. Was back to kid. Ash was anonymous. He was nothing. “I…uh.” He swallowed thickly. “My mom caught on, before anyone else did. She was a nurse at a hospital and…well yeah. She got me the blockers.”

“Stupid,” Max groaned.

“Really? You’re really going to fucking judge for that?” Ash didn’t take his arm away, used it to hide, to black everything out. “Jesus. Even pre-apocalypse it wasn’t like being an omega was this amazing, incredible experience. They’re shit on. They’re nothing but fucking slaves to you people. Nothing but whores.” That word was so bitter in his mouth he almost choked on it.

“It wouldn’t have been like that.”

“Fuck yes it would have. And then the fucking world died and look where we are. You’re sitting here prepping me for a breeding barn. Fuck you. Fuck. You.”

Max ignored his tirade, walking around the bed and opening cabinets just out of Ash’s line of vision. He was quiet, but Ash could hear the clanking of metal as he pulled things out. “Where’s your mom now?”

“Dead.” He wasn’t going to get into it any further than that. She was dead, and he was alone and everything fucking sucked.

“It’s gonna be rough, kid,” Max said from behind the bed. “If you’ve never even had a full heat…shit. It’s going to be awful.”

“Great.”

“I’m just trying to warn you. You’re probably starting to feel things already. I saw you struggle with commands. It’s already starting, and the suppressants have just begun to leave your system. I’m sorry, but’s going to be bad.” He came around into view, holding what looked like an old fashioned bike lock, complete with a key. “I need you to try and sit up a bit,” he said. Up more towards the top of the bed.”

Ash’s eyes grew wide as Max leaned over him. “No! No, I said I wouldn’t run, you don’t need to—”

“Come on. Don’t make this harder. I can’t trust you, you know I can’t.”

“Max, please!” All his begging from earlier seemed ridiculous now. He wasn’t getting out. He wasn’t going to run, they had him, they were going to lock him down like a fucking dog in a cage and he couldn’t do anything about it. “If I’m…” oh fuck, he couldn’t say it. “If I’m going...going into…” Max wasn’t even watching him, was just calmly unlocking the metal u-bar. “Max!”

“It’s just overnight. While I’m not here. You shouldn’t go into a full heat for another few days so you’ll be just fine. I’m not going to be able to get you more than another 24 hours here so try to sleep, yeah?” He pushed the pillow down, then hooked the metal lock around Ash’s neck, securing it to the back rung of the bed.

There was no room between the metal frame and the Ash’s head—he was secure against it, the pole hard and cold and uncomfortable. “Max!” he cried. Even swallowing was difficult—it was too tight. “Max, don’t!”

“Try to sleep,” Max repeated. He walked over to the corner where he bent down, carefully picking up the clipboard. He flipped to a page, and scribbled something in it. Then he put it on the end table which was now, horribly out of Ash’s reach. He didn’t even look at Ash once during the process, just turned again, flicked off the overhead light, and let himself out.

“Max! Please!” He was breathing too fast, too hard, he couldn’t get enough air. Panic was thick and cloying—a heavy weight on his chest. “Oh fuck,” he gasped, grabbing at the metal around his neck. There was still no give, nothing at all. “Fuck, please, please…”

He didn’t know who he was pleading with anymore. Above him, the IV dripped, a constant, steady motion. Everywhere else was deadly silent. The light coming through the window flickered once, and then even that went dark too.

He was alone, and his shoulder burned in pain, knifing through him with every motion, and his body was hot, so, so hot, and as his heart beat faster and faster against the walls of his chest.

And though he tried desperately to hold it back, to stay strong, to not give into the emotions that clattered in his head, he started to cry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed tags here--we are getting very, very dark for a while.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3

_There’s someone stroking his back and it’s the most calming, circular of motions. He smells lavender, and the hint of beeswax and he suddenly knows that it’s his mother, that she’s the one calming him, he can hear her voice in his ear._

_“Go carefully, go gently, go carefully, go gently…”_

_He doesn’t know what that means, but it worms its way into his being, slipping between flesh and muscle, inscribing itself in bone. “Mom!” he calls, but she’s gone already, there is no one left, just dust and ashes and death._

_He knows this for a dream—recognizes the oily slick of it, thick against his fingers but impossible to grasp. He’s swimming now, water all around him, and it’s hot and boiling against his skin and it hurts, it’s as though he’s being burned at the stake but everything is wet. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls and it sends shivers up his spine. He tries to scream, but he chokes on the water, and then he can’t close his mouth again. It fills him, pouring in as though a dam has burst, and the pressure is too much, too awful, he can’t move with it—_

_Then there are almonds. Bitter and fragrant, but right. The wolf is at his neck, lapping at the pools of water that have collected in his collarbone. He tries to turn his head to it, but he can’t move. His throat burns with every swallow, and he tries to sit up, to reach down and peel the itch from his body, to curl his fingers in the fur of the animal next to him._

_He can’t do anything._

_He’s helpless, he’s useless, he is nothing._

_“Go carefully, go gently, go carefully, go gently, go…go…go…”_

_“I can’t!” he screams,_

He woke.

There was a hand at his neck, feeling its way along the curve of his skin and Ash thrashed away, choking himself on the metal of the bike lock. “What the fuck,” he sputtered, trying to grab at the thing and give himself room to breath.

“Hey, kid, it’s alright—”

“Where am I?” The echo of Max’s voice was thick in his ears, and it was too hot, everything was too hot. He reached up for his hair, pulling at it, trying to get to his neck, fingernails leaving sharp gouges in their wake.

“Kid, hey, hey, _Ash_!”

Ash blinked, took a deep breath, then shook his head, panic overtaking him. Alpha scent was everywhere. He could smell remnants of Arthur at his bed, and that was so nauseating he gagged with it. Then there was Max’s scent, cloying and distracting and he wanted it, he wanted to chase it–he couldn’t move, the lock at his neck was too strong, he felt so sick–he gagged again, barely keeping it together. “I…,” he murmured, trying to swallow. “I don’t feel well…”

“No shit,” Max said. He sounded authoritative but nervous, almost scared. There was another fumbling ten seconds of his hands at Ash’s neck and then the bike lock clicked off finally. “Breath with me, alright Ash? Just breathe.”

Ash looked groggily up at him, but his vision was swimming and it looked like there were two Max’s, or maybe even three, and all of them were wearing something weird over their mouths. “What did you do to me?” he managed to slur out. “I don’t…I don’t feel well…”

“I know. I know, shit, I wasn’t expecting it to go so fast but…you’re going into heat.”

“What? This doesn’t…this isn’t…”

“Your heat. I warned you yesterday that it was going to be a bad one.”

“But I don’t feel like...that…” he was so confused. Heats were awful but they were supposed to come with heightened senses and with feral desire and with lust. This was…this was nauseating. He could smell things but they hurt, breathing hurt, opening his eyes hurt. “Everything…” Ash tried. He pressed his hand up to his face, trying to ground himself. “Everything hurts.”

“I know. Look, it’s going to start evening out. You’ll start feeling more like…you would expect to feel. But it’s going to be intense, everything is going to be more intense. And I’m sorry, this sucks, but I’ve gotta take you to Golzine now. I just checked your stitches and they look good, so just try not to move that arm as much as possible, alright?”

“No. No, no—” Ash was shaking his head but it was making everything worse, making everything swim in front of him. “You said I had days before this would happen, you said—”

“I was wrong. I’ve already removed your IV,” Max said. “We need to move.”

And it was true. Ash couldn’t believe that he hadn’t woken up for that, that his senses were that dull that someone, an alpha, could come into the room and remove an IV line from the back of his hand and he wouldn’t notice. “Help me,” he whispered.

“I’ve got some anti-nausea medication here for you, alright? It’ll help, I promise.”

He handed over two small blue pills and Ash didn’t even question it, just swallowed them down dry. There was a wet towel at his face, and he blearily noticed Max mopping sweat from his brow. “I wanna go home,” he whined, then flinched with how plaintive and desperate his voice sounded.

“I know. You’re going to be okay. You got it?”

“Nothing is okay” Ash tried to swallow again but his mouth was so dry, everything was so hot. “Water?” he managed to moan.

“Yeah, yeah of course.” 

He moved behind the bed for a minute, and Ash could hear the sound of water running, and then a paper cup was thrust into his hands. He drank it down in one gulp, ignoring the awful way it swirled in his empty stomach. It was helping. The drugs were helping. He was becoming clearer, but with that came the realization that he was soaking with sweat, and that Max was wearing an oxygen mask. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.

Max was wearing an oxygen mask because Max was an alpha, and Ash was an omega in heat, and if he was this close to him in a room he might not be able to help himself… “Oh fuck,” he said again. “Don’t…don’t take me there.” He grabbed ahold of the bed rail, fingers wrapping so tight they turned white. “Don’t take me there!”

“Please don’t fight me on this, Ash,” Max growled. “I don’t want to drug you.” He prefaced this with a tap against Ash’s arm.

A full syringe of something.

Ash didn’t know what was worse. Giving in and allowing himself to be led straight to a den of alphas who were eagerly anticipating him going into heat, or fighting so hard that he’d be drugged, and led into the same den of alphas without a having a single chance in hell. 

He needed to choose quickly though. Max was already moving to help him sit up, was already scooting him toward the front of the bed. “Come on, Ash. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

He’d go. He had to. He tried to take smaller breaths, tried not to get a direct dose of Max’s bitter almond scent because that was making him blackout for seconds at a time, that was making him dizzy, making him sweat. 

He gritted his teeth. He was going to go along with this and he’d act as docile as possible, and then at the last second, when they were least expecting it, he’d fucking show his fangs.

“Good boy,” Max said.

A tremor of pleasure wriggled through him, and there was a sudden throb down low in his gut before it happened. “Uh…” Ash swallowed, cheeks flushing hot. He was wet. It wasn’t sweat this time, and he was still wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and so it went straight into the sheets of the hospital bed.

Slick.

“Come on.” Max was sounding more frustrated now, and Ash didn’t know if he was irritated by the delay, or by the entire situation. All he knew was that something deep within him was so desperate to please alpha that Ash almost couldn’t breathe. 

“I’m…” he couldn’t say it. His face was so hot with humiliation, he couldn't say it. This was awful, this was his worst nightmare, his body had already started with the physical symptoms of a heat. How long until he was a begging whore at their feet, how long until he couldn’t make a single decision for himself, how long before he was pleading with them to fuck him, to knot him. Max had wrapped an arm around his shoulder and was pulling at him. “Get off me,” Ash tried to growl.

Just like that, the energy in the room changed. Max dropped his hand and pushed into Ash, his nose and mouth just a breath away from Ash’s ear. “Get up now. Walk. We are going.” 

And Ash cowered. Shrunk in on himself completely. There was a horrible sound that was cutting through the room, and with disgust he realized it was coming from him, it was him, whining. He cut off, slamming his lips together, but another rush of slick drenched the bed underneath him. "Don't do this," he pleaded. "Please don't make me do this." 

“Get up,” Max repeated. He stood and walked to the door, opening it for Ash, and Ash had no choice but to go through. To obey.

Outside the small hospital room was a dark hallway, peppered with other doors, other high windows. He couldn’t hear anything coming from the rooms as they walked, but Max talked quietly at him.

“There are other medical rooms. We’ve got seven here. They’re meant for injured alphas, sometimes betas. Omegas get treated in the barn. You got special preference. Golzine took one look at you when you came in and wanted you. You’re…” Max stumbled over this, even shaking his head. “His type, I guess.”

“I hate you.” There was slick dripping down his legs and the hospital gown did little to cover it. He could smell Max. He could smell other alphas. He could smell himself, and _that_ was an awful realization. He was no longer disguised, that he was no longer unnoticeable. They were turning down another hallway when his stomach suddenly cramped, hard and painful, and Ash moaned, holding a hand up and doubling over.

“Come on,” Max insisted, pushing at him. “Just walk through it.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“I…uhh—” he couldn’t even speak anymore the pain was too intense. Somewhere, Max was trying to grab at him and pull him forward but Ash couldn’t move. It was horrible. He’d never felt this kind of knife-like piercing in his gut before. His last heat had been fine, had been…

_Mom stopped it_ , his brain supplied. _She stopped it before it got worse_.

“I can’t,” he choked out before pressing his lips together, trying not to puke again.

“Ash!”

Command again. And then Max was right next to him, helping from the wall and it was too much, it was all too much, Ash pushed forward, nosing at his neck licking at his scent gland and—

“Cut it out,” Max said, grabbing Ash’s shoulders and guiding him down the hallway.

“I need…I need—”

“Ash. Listen to me.” 

He tried. He really, really tried but everything was so loud and everything was so bright and everything fucking hurt.

“Ash, they’re through those doors. Come on, kid. Keep it together. I don’t…”

He cut off with a strangled sound. “Don’t what?” Ash asked. He reached up for his injured shoulder and just pushed the bandaging slightly, just enough to give him solid, non-heat related pain to lean into, to center him. His mind cleared just enough to realize that moments ago, he’d been pressed up against his jailer, scenting him, almost begging him. “Oh fuck, I can’t control it,” he stammered.

“Of course you can’t. Just try to hold it together a little longer. Alright? I got you, okay? Just hold it together, I don’t want to watch them…”

There it was again. That hitch in his voice. “Rape me?” Ash supplied, the words hot on his tongue. “You’re…” his voice stuttered to a halt. Max was delivering him. Delivering him to a den of alphas waiting to hurt him. To use him. “Max!” he squeaked, pulling against Max’s arms once more. “Max–” 

“Come on,” Max ordered, stern again.

And then they were through the double doors, in an enormous underground room that vaguely resembled a basement but there was nothing there but a cement floor, and a large drain, and at least twenty alphas standing round, smiles creeping up all of their faces. 

“No,” Ash murmured, stopping suddenly. The smell was too much, it was horrible, it was sharp and feral and smelled of…arousal. It was absolutely terrifying. Max almost walked right into him, pulled up short only at the last second. “No, no, don’t make me, don’t—”

“Mr Glenreed,” A voice rang out. It was slippery, and oily, and full of insidious possibility. “I thought I told you to collar and leash him.”

Max had very firm grip around Ash’s forearm now, so tight it hurt, and he was pulling him toward the center of the room. “He came along just fine without it.”

“Excuse me?”

The silence was deafening, and through the awful stench of the men around him, something worse wafted up—an odor so powerful, like gasoline and fire and violence all wrapped into one man. And he stepped forward, this man, dressed in a white linen suit that was pressed and that was so much cleaner than anything should have been on the dusty, barren earth.

Max whined, and this caused a spike of fear to shoot down Ash’s spine. 

“I apologize, Papa Golzine. I should have done as was requested.”

“You’re walking a very thin rope. I don’t need to remind you of what’s at stake, do I?”

Max whined again, bowing his head, and Ash flinched with it. 

And then the man, this Golzine, turned to him. “You’re bigger than I expected.” He reached out a hand toward Max, and suddenly Max was pressing something into it, handing something over—something leather and long, something metal and—

Collar. Collar and leash. Ash shook his head and tried to step back, but Max’s fingers dug into his forearm even tighter and he hissed in pain.

Golzine just smiled at the exchange, a cold, lifeless thing, then he stepped right up to Ash, until there was only a whisper of breath between them. He fisted a hand in Ash’s hair, yanking his head to the side, before burying his nose against the scent gland under Ash’s jaw and inhaling deeply. “Already in heat,” he murmured at Ash’s neck. “You smell delicious.”

His teeth were sharp at the skin, teasing the flesh, but not tearing in. There was a moment where nothing happened, a moment where Ash almost let himself breath, and then Golzine locked the collar into place.

It was stiff, and hard, and so thick Ash couldn’t bend his head down—he was forced into a position where his chin was up, where his eyes were up, where he could see every Alpha as they towered over him. It felt wrong against his skin, too tight to swallow, too tight to get a full breath. He tried to pull away, but Golzine clipped the leash into place and then he was being pulled along, right into the center of the group. 

Ash kept his fingers against the bandages, pressing in every so often just to shock himself into cognizance. The nausea was back, but the smells around him were too much to process, he hated them all, he wanted them all to die, yet there was a pooling of fire in his gut that he couldn’t quench and the need to be touched was getting stronger every second.

“Kneel,” Golzine ordered.

Ash fell to his knees before he even knew what he was doing. He blinked away the confusion from the command—it was so different from Max’s, so full of disgust. 

“You’re a pretty little thing,” Gozline was saying. He dropped the leash, and backed up to the circle of men, stepping on the end of the leather so Ash couldn’t pull away. “Normally I’d mark you right away, but Max over here tells me this is your first heat. It is, is it not?”

Someone moved, and with it came another tendril of alpha scent. Ash felt muscles let go again, felt slick dripping to the floor now. It was humiliating, and awful, and he watched as a few of the alphas caught the scent of it, reaching down and palming their already hard cocks. 

“Is it not?” Golzine asked, stronger this time, tinged with anger.

“Yes,” Ash whispered. He was weak. He was so weak and he didn’t know why he thought he could do anything against them. His entire body felt like it was burning from the inside out, yet he started to shiver on the cool of the floor.

“Sir, may I leave?”

Max’s voice was so calm, so unwavering. Ash wanted to be near him again, he wanted to be protected, he wanted to be anywhere but on his knees, surrounded by terrifying men.

“You can stay right where you are, Mr. Glenreed.”

And that was that. There was no further sound from Max, only the rabid shuffling of the circle.

“ _Hmm_. I like my bitches broken in,” Golzine said. He held up a hand, five fingers stretched out, and it was an eternity of waiting before he followed up his statement. “Have at him.”

They descended, like carrion birds to spoiled meat. Ash tried not to yell, tried not to say anything at all, pressing his lips together so hard it hurt, but then someone grabbed his bad arm and yanked it behind his back and he screamed with the pain of it. There were hands all over him, and his body wanted it so badly, wanted the touch, wanted to be controlled, wanted to be fucked, but he wasn’t going to give in.

“No,” he managed, as someone pushed against his lower back, forcing him down in to submission pose. “No, no—”

“Shut the fuck up,” someone else said, and kneed him in the face. He heard the crunch of it, felt the pain in his nose and tasted the blood as it started to flow down his face. “No!” he yelled. It was the only word he could remember, “no, no, no—”

Someone was behind him, rucking up his hospital gown, pressing fingers into his ass and he rocked back on them suddenly, without any reason why, just that it felt so fucking good, and then someone else was at his front, was unzipping. There was a cock in his face, red and angry and enormous, and he felt himself be pushed into their crotch and it smelled like alpha and it smelled like death and it smelled like something he needed right now, he wanted to be filled–.

_Fight it!_

There was the smallest voice somewhere in his head, screaming and screaming to be let out. 

_Fight it, please you have to fight it!_

“Open,” he heard, and he shivered with the command, opening his mouth as wide as he could, and then an alpha pushed in, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t fucking breathe but obeying was better than fighting it—

_NO!_

He snapped his jaw down, blood bursting in his mouth, and somewhere he heard screaming.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed tags. Words and art are both VERY NSFW!
> 
> Gorgeous art in this chapter thanks to [Salmon](twitter.com/sushisalmon95)  
> Give her some love!

Max was frozen in place.

It was chaos. It was screaming and yelling, and blood spurting, and Max couldn’t move a muscle.

Despite the mask he wore, the smell of distressed omega cut through and it was all he could do not to growl, not to bare his fangs in protest. Marvin had gotten his thick hands around the leash and had yanked Ash to the ground, stepping on it so close to the collar that Ash’s face was smashed against the bloody cement. He looked hideous, and feral, and terrifying—blood all over his nose and mouth, drenching the thin hospital gown. Golzine was yelling for order and somehow, the men obeyed, backing up into the circle again, crossing their arms and waiting for further instruction.

The man Ash had bitten had passed out—was lying just beyond the circle— and so Max forced himself to move, to yell for someone to get medical supplies, and to kneel down beside him and try to stop the bleeding.

He wanted to go to Ash.

He wanted to throw his body over Ash’s and defend him, and bite anyone who came near, and whisk him off and keep him safe forever, to sink his teeth into Ash’s neck and mark him so no one can take him again, so–

_Jesus Christ_ , Max thought, hands trembling at his side. He was wearing a fucking oxygen mask and still could smell Ash strong enough to be nearly unable to ignore the primal alpha urge. He shook his head, then looked down at the damage. Ash had nearly bitten the man’s cock off completely, and there wasn’t going to be much that only an army medic, could do. Still, Max tried his best to quench the flowing blood.

Behind him, Golzine had moved, had entered the center of the ring and had knelt down beside Ash.

“That was a very poor decision,” he murmured.

Max flinched as Ash’s fear spiked again. Ash was trying to worry at the leash, but Marvin stood his ground, keeping him almost entirely immobile. The bandaging at Ash’s shoulder was bright red again, blood seeping from the bullet wound.

“Fuck…you…” Ash tried, but his voice sounded weak to Max, like it was everything he could do just to stay present and not succumb to his body’s demands.

“Oh, little one,” Golzine purred. Max watched him reach a hand out, then lay it gently across Ash’s forehead, stroking the sweaty blond hair from his temple. “I can smell you. You need an alpha, don’t you? You need a knot—”

Ash whimpered.

“Just ask nicely!” Golzine offered. “You just need to ask.”

Max’s ears were burning hot, his face was flushed, and there was a horrible, twisting in his gut. “Fuck,” he muttered, trying to ignore everything but the man in front of him. “Bandages!” he called out, but no one was moving.

“Please,” he heard Ash whisper. “Please…please help me…please knot me, please—”

“Of course, my sweet omega.” Golzine bent even further over him, and there was a sudden spike in Alpha stench. It was enough to make Max sick, because he knew what was going to happen, he knew what Golzine was about to do.

Ash stiffened, and the room was suddenly so quiet that Max could hear the sound of Golzine lapping at his neck. “Oh, you taste so perfect,” Golzine said, drawing up just enough so that he could look down into Ash’s eyes. “You want to be marked, yes? You want to be marked and knotted?”

“Please…” Ash stuttered out—so quiet, so full of terror and pain that Max’s heart began to beat frantically against his chest.

“I do wish you hadn’t been so naughty then,” Golzine said. He stood, backing up, and Ash began to struggle against the leash and collar again. His scent was awful—was full of confusion, and desire, and need, and—

“Take him to a cell.”

The words washed over Max so quickly he thought he’d misunderstood, but Marvin yanked Ash up, laughing as he choked at the pull of the collar. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Wait…” Ash cried, color draining from his face. “Wait…wait…”

Golzine had already turned—was motioning for his men to follow.

“Wait!” Max yelped, a horrifying realization dawning. “Oh god, you can’t—”

“I can’t what, Mr. Glenreed?” Golzine growled, turning to him.

Max screwed his eyes shut, struggling against the wafting Alpha scent that Golzine exuded. “You can’t…”he tried. “You can’t lock him up, oh my god, he’s going into heat!”

“And he just disabled one of my officers. He needs to be punished. And I will not hear any more on the subject, do you understand?”

“He’s…” It was torture. It was the worst kind of psychological torture imaginable—sending an omega in heat to a cell to be alone, to deal with it alone, and Ash had…he’d only ever had one and it was aborted.

It would break him.

And for some reason, that thought grew claws, hooking into Max’s insides, making him want to scream with it. “You can’t,” he whispered.

“Do you understand?”

This was more than a growl. This was Alpha command, the full weight of Golzine’s fury and temper directed towards Max. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

And then he was gone—out the double doors, followed by his closest men. The others went to help Marvin, to pull Ash away, down the basement steps, even further into the dark, down to where the prison cells lay. He screamed, and cried, omega fear thick in the air, but soon he was also gone, leaving Max alone with an unconscious body.

And no choice.

There was never any choice.

There was nothing but Ash’s scream, echoing in the room, refusing to die.

***

His daily rounds included the breeding barn—checking in on all omegas, making sure they were functional, making sure they weren’t too injured to work. Most were still fertile, and these ones were prized, were given more freedom. They were taken for daily walks around the compound, they were given meals with higher calorie counts. They were lucky—as so many alphas here put it. Once one was pregnant, they weren’t left to service the alphas in rut.

Lucky was one way to put it. Watching the way their hollow eyes tracked him as he took vitals was enough to make him sick.

The barren ones certainly had it worse, though. Those were strapped to benches for days at a time—left for the alphas to fuck whenever they so desired. When they had heats, they were given to those who’d earned them. The alphas of the compound were in constant competition—earning ‘points’ for every operation completed. The easiest (and the least amount of points) were earned by those gathering food, or overseeing the small greenhouse that had been constructed on the second floor of the building. Those who trekked into a town for medicine, or supplies were next.

Those who hunted omegas and brought them back alive?

Max shivered, not wanting to think on it any longer. He was ranked low on the totem pole of working alphas, but even he had been there long enough to accumulate enough points to spend a heat with an omega. He refused every time though—choosing instead to spend his ruts alone, painfully alone. It lessened him, in the eyes of the others, but he had no desire to play to their hierarchical needs.

It had been two days since they’d taken Ash to the cells, and this was the first time he didn’t have someone tailing him, one of the beta ‘nurses’ as they liked to refer to themselves as. He made it through the omegas who’d been scheduled for the day, trying not to rush, trying to ignore that horrible, itching sensation that had lodged itself in his spine, rubbing constantly against him and refusing to let go.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

About Ash, all alone, terrified, hurting, desperate. He was having nightmares that bled into waking hours, he was unable to shake the feeling of being watched, the feeling of being needed, the feeling of failing. And so as soon as he had a chance, he took it.

He finished the exam of the last omega nearing her heat, noting with some concern the lack of slick being produced, but he just noted it as an irregularity, clearing her for breeding. It was the kindest thing he could do in the situation—if he so much as mentioned that she might be barren, her world would narrow down to nothing. Then he stood, grabbing his clipboard and walking back down the hall as though everything were perfectly normal.

It wasn’t. He scented the air just to make sure there were no alphas near, then turned to the basement door, opening it and descending as quietly as possible down the steps.

It hit him within moments and he had to hold himself back from going completely feral and racing down the dark hall to the back cell where they were keeping him. The smell of an unmarked omega in heat without any alpha around would have been intoxicating, would have been completely impossible to ignore, even without the sharp notes of fear, of distress, of insanity, that wafted through the air.

“Ash?” he murmured, holding his coat up to his nose, trying to block some of the scent.

There was a horrible whining sound, and a scuffling of movement.

“Ash?” He asked again, walking down the dimly lit corridor. The odor was getting worse, it permeated every breath and there was a terrible stirring in Max’s gut. _Rescue_ , his instincts commanded. _Rescue, rescue, rescue_ —he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, attempting to dislodge the push of his conscience. “Ash?”

“Please.”

Max froze. The voice was hoarse, wrecked from screaming already, but it was very much Ash. Max forced himself forward, once more cell, then the next, and finally, at the very last cell of the row, he stopped, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up.

Ash was there—strung up against the back wall. His collar was hooked into metal key rings, and his wrists were chained on either side of his head. He could barely move in this position, and yet his neck and his wrists were swollen, covered in dried blood and leaking new, as though he’d struggled against them constantly since being there.

He probably had.

He was in the middle of his heat—the stench made that obvious—but not only was he not being taken care of by an alpha, not nesting, not being knotted, not being watched carefully—he wasn’t even able to touch himself. Max could see how his cock stood hard, red, and swollen, leaking from the head. His lower body was soaked in slick—the cement floor of the cell was covered in it as well. And the worst was watching him try—thrusting against the air, forcing his arms down as far as they could go, over and over and over again, and pleading the entire time. “Please,” he begged. “Please, please, alpha, please, alpha—”

He wasn’t talking to Max.

He wasn’t talking to anyone. He was desperate, and terrified, and his body required something that he was being denied.

Max gagged, then forced the fabric of his lab coat even tighter against his nose. It was a hideous display of torture, and it awakened every instinct in him. Rescue. Run. Protect, Protect, Protect— “No!” he growled. Ash flinched in on himself so hard he opened one of the many scabs on his neck, causing blood to bloom red and drip down against the neck of the grimy hospital gown he still wore. “Shit,” Max muttered. He stepped up to the bars, forcing himself to watch, to see what he’d made possible.

He should have never consented to forcing Ash’s heat. He should have faked it, pretended Ash was really a beta, done anything but this. This was horrific. And it was his fault. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled against the bars. “Ash?”

Ash jerked and came, just from Max’s voice. It was only a dribble of cum, that dripped down his cock, thick and so viscous it was like tar. _Dehydration_ , Max thought. Dehydration and denial of an alpha’s cock. Omega’s depended on that, it was in their genetic code. They needed to be filled, they needed to be knotted during a heat. They could make due with toys, but it was miserable. Without anything? Torture. _He could go into shock. He could have a heart attack. He could die._

Max gagged again. Even death would be better than this. “Ash,” he called. “Hey, kid.”

Ash didn’t look at him. He just continued to pump into the air, wrists shredding at the cuffs, breaths gasping and panting as the collar cut off his air. The bandaging on his shoulder from the gunshot wound was soaked through with fresh blood as well. “Please,” he moaned. “Please, please, please…”

He needed water. He was going to die of dehydration before anything else, the way his slick was overproducing because of a first, triggered heat, was the most dangerous thing here. “Okay,” Max mumbled, backing away from the cell. “God, fuck. Hang in there, kid. Just hang in there.” Then he turned, walking back the way he came, then running, trying to get away as fast as possible because through it all, through the tortured animalistic groans, the tear tracks on his face, the desperation…through it all, the sickening alpha instinct within him was beginning to shout something new.

_Mate…mate…mate._

_Mine…mine…mine._

***

“Sir, it’s torture. He’s dying, sir.”

“He bit the cock off one of my men. He injured others. He will be punished for his actions,” Golzine said. He turned from where Max knelt on the floor, and with a flick of his wrist, indicated one of the omega slaves that sat by his door to come near. “Wine,” he ordered. “Now.”

She was a pretty thing once—brown hair, with sky-blue eyes—but they were deadened now. There was only a hard shell of a human left—hardly anything to save. She nodded stiffly, then vanished, crawling out the room on her hands and knees as Golzine had ordered of all his slaves.

Max didn’t say a word, just waited until the wine had been procured—poured into a metal cup, and placed directly in Golzine’s hand.

“You are very concerned for this thing,” Golzine stated. “Very concerned for an alpha who has refused to redeem his omega chits.”

“It’s not a concern that pertains to me,” Max said, perfectly calm, eyes on the blood red of the Persian rug that he knelt on. “ Your mercenaries went through the trouble of bringing him in. Your breeding barns are beginning to wear thin. Too many omega deaths. I merely advise that you look after those you have now because there will come a time where they are not so easy to find. Not so easy to capture.”

“I think you are venturing very close to a subject of which you have no pressing business in speaking of,” Golzine said.

He didn’t growl. He didn’t yell. He didn’t do anything but simply state, in that red wine, thick voice of his. He was a king, in a world that respected violence, and he wasn’t in any danger of being usurped.

Max swallowed, and fought to keep his voice steady. “I am speaking with no personal feelings towards the subject at all, I’m only stating fact. In the last six months, you’ve lost five of your breeding stock. Once they become barren, they don’t live much longer. This is common knowledge. This is something that the men brag and boast over—who can kill one the fastest. I’m just trying to remind you that they are dying faster than you bring them in and that might be something to consider here.”

“He injured my men. He will not get a free pass.”

“All I’m asking is that he be given water. Food, if you can. But he needs water. He’ll die of dehydration down there faster than his heat will last.” It was hell trying to keep his fingers from forming into fists at his side, and it was hell trying to keep his voice steady. _Rescue him_ , his alpha instinct screamed, but he schooled his face to stoicism.

Dino took a drink of wine, slowly tasting every bitter note before swallowing. “He’ll have water,” he said, his eyes watching Max like a predator watches the landscape—waiting for a single flicker of motion. When there was none, he gave a short nod, then motioned with his hand towards the door. _Leave,_ his body language said _. Leave now._

“Thank you sir,” Max grunted, then he allowed himself to be escorted from the room by the two alphas who stood guard at the door.

***

Ibe was waiting for him in his quarters.

“I can’t right now,” was all Max could say. He was tired, he was sick with grief over the way everything had played out, he just…

“We are ready to move soon.”

Max looked up. “Ibe?” he asked. He didn’t want to hope for it, but Ibe wouldn’t lie. Not after everything…

“We’ll be ready in a few weeks.”

“Oh my god,” Max gasped out, pressing a hand to his mouth.

It had been over a year. Over a year of secret meetings, of constant anxiety, of terror that he’d be found out, and that the few people he loved would suffer for it.

“Max? Can you be ready?”

He realize Ibe had been talking and he hadn’t heard a word. “Yeah,” he managed. _Ash…_ “There’s someone I need to bring with us. Someone from the barns.”

Ibe’s face hardened as he thought for a moment.

The silence grew between them, solid and impenetrable, but Max didn’t look away.

“Can you have them ready when we are?”

“I will.”

“Fine.” Then Ibe turned and left, not saying another word.

***

The wait was horrifying.

He was watched everywhere he went for the next few days—someone was always at his back, whether he was upstairs in the medical rooms, downstairs in the breeding barn, or even gone to his small bedroom—one of dozens of similar dormitory style rooms. At least within his room, he was lucky enough to not be under constant watch. His status as an alpha and as the lead medic for the compound guaranteed him privacy, however, it was within this room that he had to fend off his own demons.

Memories plagued him. Visions of the army, of the apocalypse, of the chaos that happened after…all of it kept him from sleeping at night. He woke agitated—angry and afraid—unable to do much but pant through the dreams, trying in vain to catch his breath. It was happening again. He could feel it—he was getting attached to something, to some ideal, and people would suffer.

Try as he might though, he couldn’t put Ash from his mind.

On the fifth day after Golzine’s little chat, he finally got a breakthrough. The guard on him had lessened over the past few days, and he had to assume that meant that Ash was finally coming out of his heat—that Golzine was no longer bothered by Max’s show of concern, that he no longer considered Max to be any sort of threat at all.

He was tending to a newly pregnant omega—administering the requisite vitamins and standing guard to watch as she swallowed them—when it happened. The alpha who’d been keeping watch that day suddenly held the walkie-talkie to his ear, listened for just a moment, then turned and left.

Max waited an entire 24 hours to be sure that no one else was taking his place, before he finally slipped back down to the sub basement.

The smell of distressed omega was still strong, but the heady heat scent had dissipated somewhat. Max breathed in relief, thankful that it was on the waning side of it. He didn’t think he had the stomach to see Ash like that again—helpless, terrified, and completely at the mercy of Golzine’s men. “Ash?” he called out, making his way to the back cell.

Ash didn’t answer, but Max sighed in relief when he approached, noting that Ash was seated on the cement floor—no longer hanging from his throat and wrists. “Oh fuck, thank god,” Max whispered, hurrying to the bars and kneeling down. He reached a hand out, but his fingers barely touched the skin of Ash’s shoulder, before Ash jerked away so sudden, so furious, that Max’s heart was in his throat. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, sorry.”

“Go away.”

“Ash, fuck. Fuck, I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Go away.”

Ash’s voice was strained—weak, like he’d been screaming so long he’d damaged vocal chords. Shuddering, Max realized he probably had. “Ash, I know you don’t want to see me right now. I just needed to know you were okay.”

“I’m not fucking okay.” He hunched over himself then, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face. His shoulders began to move—thick, jerking motions—and his breaths were shuddering, gasping things.

He was crying.

Clenching his teeth as hard as he could, Max tried to calm himself, tried so hard to stop the instinct that was constantly rearing within him. It was almost impossible. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

The bandages around his shoulder were now completely brown with dried blood—hard and crusted over. Ash still smelled of heat, but it was only the dried slick and cum all over his legs. He hadn’t been washed yet—only unstrung from the chains. He looked even smaller, even more gaunt, as though he’d lost ten pounds. He probably had. Max noted a small bowl of water in the corner of the cell, but there was nothing else that indicated that Ash had been fed during his week-long stay. “You need to drink,” Max said. “There’s still water in that bowl. You need to drink.”

It was an almost imperceptible movement, the shake of his head, but Max caught it none the less. “Ash,” he said more firmly. “You need to hydrate or you could die.”

“I want to die.” His voice sounded hollow, like there was barely anything left but the echo of someone he used to be.

“Don’t…fuck. Don’t say that. I know, but you’ve got to fight this, okay?”

“I want to die.”

“Ash—”

“I want to die, I want to die, I want to die—”

Every iteration of it grew louder, punctuated the space, and Max flinched with it, nervously watching the hallway, just waiting for someone to hear and come running. “Ash, stop!” he whispered frantically. “Ash, they…fuck. They don’t know I’m here, stop!”

He did, but he snuck a glance at Max from under his arm. His green eyes were flinty and cold, hatred filling them completely, but at least he’d quieted.

“I’m going to do my best to help you,” Max offered, but he shivered, a coldness sneaking tendrils through his nerves, reminding him with absolute clarity that his best was absolute shit.

Ash laughed. It was a quiet, horrible sound, as though he’d gone feral, as though he were completely manic. “You can’t do a fucking thing.”

“I’m going to try,” Max offered.

“Fuck you. You’re weak.”

“No—”

“Golzine took you in and you obey him like the little lapdog you are. You’re weak, and pathetic, and you have no fight.”

Taking a deep breath in, Max bit his lip, then began.“I refuse to be the reason another person dies. The reason another family is destroyed. They hunt alphas, you know?”

“I don’t care.”

“Ash,” Max warned. “Listen. It’s not just people like you those mercenaries are looking for. They follow alphas and lie in wait, just watching where they go, what they do. Everything. Because chances are, they’re out there taking care of someone and that someone might just be an omega.”

Raising his head, Ash watched him, anger in his eyes, tear tracks plain against his dirty skin.

“Look, kid. You don’t know everything. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I’m not going to be the reason a family is separated ever again.”

“So you’re just going to hole up here, pretending like you’re doing the universe some massive favor by taking care of an omega breeding barn. You’re going to birth those infants, and then steal them away from their parents. You’re going to give an obligatory pat on the head to the omega, and then send them right back down to the cellars to be tied up once more and raped over and over and over until you do it all again. Yeah,” Ash snorted. “You’re real stoic.”

The anger roiled so hot and heavy, and Max was standing before he even realized, grabbing Ash’s collar through the bars and hauling him up so close that his face was pressed up against the metal. He choked for a moment against the leather, arms flailing before finally catching at Max’s wrist. “Don’t,” Max growled. “Don’t you dare think that you understand what I go through here.”

“Fuck you,” Ash spat.

His eyes were cast down though, oddly submissive despite his words, and Max tried to take a deep breath, to calm himself. Instead, all he got was a nose full of vanilla, and something almost floral. He closed his eyes, fighting against the want to scent Ash, the latent desire that was once more pooling in his gut. Ash whined then, ever so slightly, and Max fought down horror at the sound. _You’re pathetic_ , he thought. _You’re just as bad as they are._ “I’m sorry,” he said instead, carefully letting go and watching with shame as Ash began to rub insistently at this throat where the collar had bit into skin once more. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, as Ash sank down to the floor again. “When they followed me…when…” he paused, cringing back at the memory, not wanting to press into it any further than necessary. “Sorry,” he said.

Ash just glared at him.

“Right. Well…when they followed me? It was late at night. I’d found refuge in an abandoned farmhouse. There was a cellar there that someone had constructed—lined with cement, almost airtight. When I’d found the place? There was a beta woman there, taking care of her son. He was young—only eight or nine—and he was very, very sick. She was unable to leave his side and so when I found them, I swore I’d help. I swore that I’d protect them, and I swore that I’d take care of him. You know about my army past. I didn’t know if I could save him—he was so little, and so weak already—but I knew I could try to at least make him comfortable.”

There was a slight clanging of sound, and Max looked down to see Ash scooting towards the bars again, putting his back to them for support, like he had been when Max first entered the sub-basement. He didn’t say anything though, just crossed his arms over his knees, and so Max continued. “I went out during the days. Didn’t travel too far, but there was a small town about three miles south of the farmhouse and so I’d go there for supplies whenever I needed. It was pretty well abandoned, but there was a pharmacy and a grocery store and neither had been wholly picked over. It was like this for weeks. The boy started to come out of it by degrees—his color improved, he began talking again—and Jessica? His mom? She started spending more time in the house during the day—setting it right. Cleaning, and discarding anything that had gone bad. We weren’t playing house so much as…well…it was familiar? You know? It was something familiar and that came with it’s own ache.”

“What was his name?”

Ash whispered it, so quietly Max almost didn’t hear. “Michael,” he said, the name dropping from his lips and landing on the cement floor so harshly that it shattered. “Michael.” He swallowed, then squeezed his eyes shut for just a moment before going on. “They found me in the pharmacy,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know. I could smell something off that day, but it wasn’t pure Alpha or I’d have been warned. It was just…a change of the wind. I grabbed what we needed for the week and began the trek back home. I had no idea I was being followed. I wasn’t expecting it. I was stupid. And so they came, and they grabbed Jessica and Michael, and they forced us outside. Michael was still so sick that he had trouble walking without coughing too much. They took one look at him and decided he wasn’t worth saving. Shot him in the head. And I didn’t do anything because all I could think about was that Jessica would be next if I fought it. So I sat there, on my knees, in front of a mercenary hunting squad. Watched as Jessica started to scream. Yelled at her to stop, yelled at her to be quiet, to kneel like they asked. And then she ran at them, and they shot her down as well.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?” Ash asked.

His back was to Max but Max didn’t need to watch his expression to hear the disgust in his voice.

“Why didn’t you try. You’re a fucking alpha, you could have protected them if you tried.”

“I know. I know, but I trusted them. They were military. They wore the tags, they’d identified themselves correctly. I trusted that they’d do what was best for us, because that’s what military men do. Because if we can’t trust each other than what’s the point of trying to live?”

Ash made a sort of huffing sound, something raw and horribly sad, and then his shoulders began to shake again, ever so slightly.

“Ash?”

“Can you go away, now?”

His voice was thick, cracking on the hard consonants, and Max wanted nothing more than to open the cell door and go to him. To take him in his arms. To give him something, anything…just…touch. Omegas in heat needed touch more than anything else and he’d been down here alone, suffering alone, crying for someone who wasn’t going to come. “Ash, I’m so sorry for what they did—”

“Please go away.”

It was unfair, but Max did it anyway—reached through the bars to stroke a finger against the curve of Ash’s shoulder.

Ash flinched away, then turned toward him growling, though his eyes were red with unshed tears. “Fuck off. Don’t touch me.”

And just like that, they were back to square one. Ash was closed off—angry and hurt and completely untrusting—and Max had done it. Had caused him to throw up his walls. “I’m sorry, Ash.”

“Then let me go.”

“You know I can’t do that. You know if I let you free, one of them would be on you in minutes. You smell like an omega in heat but it’s even stronger than most because it’s your first one off suppressants. And it sucks what they did to you. It makes me sick to my stomach. But I can’t do anything about it.”

Ash watched him as he stood, eyes tracking him even as Max moved away from the cell, back into shadow. He didn’t relax. He didn’t do much of anything, just stared, bright green eyes even hollower than they’d been just minutes ago.

“I’ll try to help you. If I can.” Max wasn’t sure why he said it, only that it felt more right than anything else in his life. Ash just shook his head though, then folded back against the bars, pulling his knees even tighter to his chest.

The uncomfortable silence spread, thick like fog, choking the life out of the room. He was right. There was only so much Max could do, and he had no business making promises when he couldn’t even save himself. Scratching at his neck, his skin suddenly itchy and hot, Max shook it off and walked back down the hall.


	5. Chapter 5

_He’s in hell._

_He has no idea how long he’s been here, no idea where here is, only that he’s screaming as loud as he can, and everything hurts, and his brain isn’t working right, nothing is working right. All he can think is ‘alpha’ all he can scream is ‘alpha,’ he needs someone so badly that he can barely breathe._

_He’s got four fingers inside of himself when the men come back again, his wrist is burning with the strain of it but he’s trying to fuck himself as deeply as he possibly can and it’s not doing anything, nothing is happening, there’s just this emptiness inside of him that burns so badly he can’t function._

_“Fuck, he’s desperate,” someone says from close by._

_Ash should feel shame, that hot, liquid shame that pools in your belly when you’ve done something horribly wrong, but he feels nothing at all. Just keeps rocking back on those fingers and screaming for “alpha, please alpha, please!” Over and over again._

_The cell door unlocks and one of them steps in. Ash is barely coherent enough to recognize that he’s wearing a gas mask, but even with that protective gear, he turns back to the other man yelling “he fucking reeks. We could have some fun with him first, right?”_

_And Ash is desperate for it. There’s hope now, you see? Someone might touch him, someone might fuck him and he wants that so badly that he’ll do anything. “Please!” he begs, falling to his knees, his fingers popping out of him with a sickening squelch. “Please alpha, please fuck me, please fuck me, I need it, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good, I’ll—”_

_“Pathetic,” the one still outside says. “And you can’t. Golzine’s orders.”_

_“Fuck.” Even with that response, the alpha already inside the cell moves towards Ash._

_Ash starts keening, wild, and loud, and so desperate. He spreads his knees and forces his head to the ground, lying prostrate, turning his head so his neck is exposed. Perfect omega form, the alpha has to see it, has to want him “please,” he begs again. “Please fill me, please alpha—”_

_The alpha grabs a hold of his wrists, and Ash cums just from the touch alone, striping the cement floor with it, shaking apart, because it didn’t do anything, his cock is still so hard, so full, so horribly sensitive. “No, please, please, fuck me, please—”_

_The alpha isn’t though. He’s pulling Ash up, dragging him toward the back of the cell and snapping cuffs around his wrists. Somewhere, there’s pain, horrible pain at the nexus of his shoulder blade and collarbone, but he can’t even think his way through the thickness of his muddled thoughts enough to realize that it’s probably the gunshot wound—it’s probably his stitches pulling out. All he realizes is that the alpha is hooking his collar to the wall also and now he’s walking away and Ash can’t do anything, can’t reach inside himself, can’t touch his own cock, is completely, utterly helpless._

_And then the cell door closes, and the alphas leave, and he’s left with nothing at all, just heat, heat, heat—_

_and he starts to scream again._

The blast of water hit him right in the face, and Ash jerked awake from the nightmare, struggling to draw in breath around it. He pushed himself to the back of the cell, trying to get out of the blast radius, but it just followed him, spraying him down, the water pressure so hard that it was already bruising skin.

“Stop!” He begged, throwing his good arm up to protect his face. The water moved to his bad shoulder, and he screamed then, hunching over as best he can. “Stop, please, stop!”

It kept going. Catching his thighs, his ass, pummels his cock and balls and that was when he gagged in pain, puking bile on the floor. It finally shut off then, sudden and terrifying, and all Ash could hear was the dripping of water from his body.

“He’s a fucking mess,” someone said outside the cell. “Hit him again.”

And they do. This time it seemed as though the water would never stop—but it did, leaving him shivering in it’s frigid wake. “Please,” he whispered. _Where’s Max_ , he thought, and Ash winced at that, disgusted at himself for even thinking about the fucking alpha. 

“Stand up—back against the wall and hands behind your head,” one of the men barked.

They are betas—Ash could smell it on them. Softer than alphas, more mellow, like butter, or grass. Betas, but here in hell, they were still assholes. He tried to stand, but fell against the wall once before catching himself, breathing hard.

“Stand the fuck up,” another shouted at him.

“I’m trying,” he gasped, choking at the sour taste in his mouth. He managed it after a struggle, and placed his hands behind the back of his head, trying to ignore how much they were shaking.

“In,” one ordered, unlocking the door.

Three of them press in, as though they actually thought that he needed three to keep him under submission. He’d tell them that they already broke him, that he was useless, that he won’t fight anymore because there was nothing left to him but a sad puppet with the strings cut off, but it was too much work to speak right now, and he hurt too much. 

One of them grabbed his bad arm, wrenching it behind him, and at that Ash gasped in pain. Otherwise, it was an easy procedure.

Cuff him.

Leash him.

Drag him up from hell.

“Don’t know what Golzine wants with you,” one of them taunted in his ear. “You’re a fucking mess. You smell like shit, you look like shit. My bet’s on you dying—hemorrhaging on his knot and bleeding out before anyone else gets a turn.

Ash blinked at that. He wanted to die. He’d thought about dying. Bleeding to death underneath an alpha is not one of the ways he’d hoped to go. Ash didn’t respond though—just watched the floor in front of him, carefully stepping in rhythm with the beta pulling the leash. He was so tired right now that it was actually lulling him to sleep, so he tried to focus on the ever-burning pain in his shoulder, how it pulled with every yank of the line. He tried to stay as coherent as possible. 

_Max_ , he thought.

_I want Max._

He shouldn’t. The alpha was pure trouble, Ash could smell it a mile away. Max wanted him, just like all the other alphas did, and that made him dangerous. Max was quiet, Max tried to _help_ , and that made him deadly. He was no better than any other alpha here, and his motivations were highly suspect. If Ash were the one calling the shots, if he were the one trying to terrorize a lowly omega into submission, he sure as hell would have someone on the psychological manipulation side of things—making him feel safe, giving him hope.

Torture was so much more effective when you had something like hope to rip away.

“Where?” he asked. It was so quiet and sad sounding coming out of his mouth, and he regretted speaking even as the lead beta answered.

“Golzine. He’s taken an interest in you.”

Ash knew this already, it’s not as though it came as a surprise. Still, his stomach starting twisting at the mention of the alpha’s name, and he had to force his face to stillness so as not to completely panic in the middle of the hallway. 

They pulled him for a long while, his bare feet padding against the stone of the sub basement floor. Eventually, they took some stairs, and then they took some more stairs, and just when his shoulder was starting to scream at him, and just when he was about to fall over from exhaustion, they pushed through a last door and stood outside.

Ash was blinded for the first minute. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d seen the real sun. Days, maybe even weeks? It hurt his eyes and he blinked them closed quickly, trying to back up towards the safety of the darkness. The leash pulled tight though, and there was nowhere he could go but forward.

Now they seemed to be in some sort of dusty courtyard, and with every step he flinched, feet managing to find every sharp rock and stone there was. The building itself was huge, a grand manse that must have been previously inhabited by someone very, very wealthy There were people out there, some milling around, some bustling from one quadrant of the house, to the next. 

They were all fully clothed.

They were all staring at him.

Ash swallowed thickly, and tried to ignore the sudden surge of humiliation that flushed within him. His hands were still cuffed behind his back and he couldn’t cover himself if he tried, but he was suddenly so horribly aware of his nakedness, of his smell, that all he wanted to do was hide.

The tug of the leash kept pulling though, so he trudged forward dutifully, looking only at the ground and ignoring the way his ears began to burn. 

They pulled him straight across the courtyard and in through another door of the house. This side was cleaner, more beautiful. All of the beta’s leading him came to stop in a hallway that was lined by lavender painted walls, and pure white wainscoting. Ash hadn’t been anywhere this clean since…

Since before.

He bit his bottom lip, worrying at it and trying to ignore the surge of memory, the sparklingly clear _want_ for his mother that came with that realization. 

The floor was of a very light wood, thin slats layed perfectly together, and as he was being pulled, Ash realized with horror that he was leaving dusty and bloody footprints all along the way. It was enough to make his heart quicken, enough to make him sweat.

He knew now what Dino is capable of, and this was absolutely terrifying. He couldn’t think around it.

He was still trying to catch a full breath when he realized that the men leading him have stopped.

“Sir” one called out, knocking lightly at the door. “We’ve brought it.”

There was a paralyzing moment where absolutely nothing happened and Ash considered running. It was the most ridiculous idea in the world. There was nowhere to go! He was locked to a lead, his hands were useless, and he was surrounded on all sides by men bigger than him, by men who were armed, but he couldn’t stop thinking it. He couldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here, he needed to run, he needed to get out before something worse happened.

The door opened.

And the smell of Alpha overwhelmed him, charcoal and ash, and _wrong_ , his mind supplied. All wrong. Ash looked down at the floor, unable to even bring his head up. He was too terrified to move. That smell…he knew that smell, he knew Golzine, he knew something bad was coming, bad, bad—

He needed to be a good omega, he needed to bow down but the leash was too tight, he was breathing quicker, not getting enough oxygen, and– 

“My feisty little bitch,” Golzine laughed.

Ash felt the tug of the lead and knew the leash had been transferred. He wanted to kneel. He wanted to run. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do and if he failed, then they’dl punish him, Golzine would lock him away again, he’d be powerless, he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t fuck up, he—

The leash tugged hard, and Ash stumbled forward.

“Look at me,” Golzine ordered.

It was a command, so his head snapped up, looking directly into those predatory hazel eyes. Golzine was smiling at him, the curve of his mouth sinister and judgmental. Ash tried to look back down right away, but Golzine just snapped the leash so that it jerked hard against the collar. “I’m sorry,” Ash found himself saying, in advance of anything.

It was disgusting how quickly he was ready to serve this man, this _Alpha_. Ash had always hated his biology, but he’d also always considered himself strong, able to fight it, able to be human. Right now he felt lower than a dog.

“You look disgusting,” Golzine taunted. “You’re a dirty little thing, aren’t you?”

His cheeks started to burn, and the utter humiliation of everything that he’d been trying to keep so hard at bay broke free. “I’m sorry,” he murmured again, pathetically docile, shoulders starting to shake. 

Golzine stepped closer, bringing a hand up and touching Ash’s chin. He moved Ash’s head from side to side, then let a finger drift down his chest, lazily swirling against Ash’s skin, down to his navel, down further past the tight coils of blond hair, until it stopped, right above Ash’s limp penis. “You still smell like heat,” he growled, pulling Ash’s face down and nuzzling his nose in Ash’s neck. “I hear it was your first.”

Ash could feel Golzine’s tongue against his neck, Golzine’s hand at his groin, and he’d never been more afraid in his entire life.

“Was it good for you?” Golzine continued, lips parting and teeth pressing against Ash’s scent gland.

A whimper escaped him, and Ash forced his eyes closed, pressing so hard it hurt.

Golzine’s hand moved fast, grabbing Ash’s balls and squeezing so tightly that he curled in on himself in pain, he was yelling, he was screaming, and then he wasn’t, because he couldn’t get enough air. It was a spike of pain that went straight to his stomach, and as he finally managed to pull in another breath, he blinked away tears in the corners of his eyes.

And through it all, Golzine just stood there. Smiling. Not moving an inch. He let go eventually, and Ash fell to his knees, desperate to protect himself, but his arms still weren’t free. He knew his shoulder is bleeding again—it was that fiery, wetness that he was all too familiar with now—but he couldn’t do anything about it. He was completely helpless. So he hunched forward, shuddering and gasping, and trying with all his might not to cry.

“Stand up.”

Ash flinched back, still trying not to puke.

“I said stand up. You don’t want another punishment, do you, my little omega bitch?”

Ash didn’t. He hated himself, he wanted to die, he wanted…

_Alpha…_

_Alpha…_

“No,” he whispered.

_Max…_

“What did you say to me?” 

Golzine sounded angry now, and Ash quickly laid his head to the side, exposing his neck. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I’ll try. I’ll try harder.” He pushed himself off his knees, putting one foot out, then the next. And then he was up again, right in front of Golzine, the smell of his own terror thick in his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Good.” Golzine reached out and hooked his hand around Ash’s neck, fingers pressing at and around the collar. “This is the collar that my breeders wear,” he said. “You might end up there.” His hand dropped and suddenly it was wrapped around Ash’s waist. “So slender, though,” Golzine murmured. “I wonder if you’d be any good at all, bearing children?”

Ash swallowed. He didn’t know why, but Max hadn’t told Golzine yet. Hadn’t told him that Ash was barren from suppressant overuse. 

“So fair,” Golzine murmured now, reaching up and brushing back Ash’s hair. “Such beautiful eyes. It’s amazing that you haven’t been claimed.” Golzine pushed a finger against Ash’s scent gland again, and then he closed his eyes and moaned, lusty and disgusting.

His pants were tenting between his legs, and Ash knew exactly where this is leading. The smell of alpha was already starting to bleed through even stronger, saturating the air around them. 

“I think I’ll mate you, “ Dino said.

It wasn’t a surprise. There’s was other reason Golzine would have wanted him up here. Otherwise, they’d have taken him to the breeding barn, where Max worked, where…

Max. 

_Max._

It was all wrong. He couldn’t shake the scent of Max, but the stench of Golzine was overwhelming. It was all wrong, it wasn’t supposed to be this way, but he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t go back to that cell, he couldn’t go through another heat with no one, he couldn’t, he needed to ride this out, to think through it—

Golzine grabbed him suddenly, pulling Ash to himself and yanking his head down. Ash was whimpering again, horrible, pitiful cries that fell from his lips, and he couldn’t stop shaking. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. There was supposed to be love, there was supposed to be desire, there was supposed to be magic—

Golzine’s teeth sank into his neck.

Ash gasped in pain, every muscle in his body tense. He couldn’t pull away, but it hurt, it hurt so much. He didn’t think it was supposed to hurt like this, there was supposed to be something else, some sort of pleasure, but all he feels was pain and—

The scent started to change.

There was no more smoky ash. No more volcanic bitterness. There was no more Max, there was just…nothing.

Golzine was moaning above him, lips pressed fast to Ash’s skin, sucking at the blood that leaked from the wound. Finally, he pulled free, wiping at this mouth. His lips were stained red of Ash. “Oh, you smell so good,” Golzine moaned. “Bed,” he ordered.

There was nothing. There was no scent! There wasn't ...he was supposed to feel something, he was supposed to have some way of knowing how his Alpha felt towards him! “I…” he managed. “I don’t…”

“Bed, now!” Golzine growled.

And it was like someone had grabbed him, had slapped him across the face. The orders before were brutal, were things he was unable to control, but now he had no choice at all. If he didn’t move, he’d die, his body would die, everything would—

He was on the bed before he even realized it was happening, knees down, ass up, face turned into the mattress so that his neck was still exposed.

“Good omega,” Golzine purred.

Even that shot through him more. It was warmth, and happiness, and his body relaxed into it.

_No_ , his mind warred. _Don’t do this._

Golzine climbed up behind, and the mattress buckled under his weight. Ash could hear the zipper on his pants, could feel the slightest hint of breeze as the soft fabric brushed against his skin. “Alpha,” he moaned, because he knew it was right, he knew it was what Golzine wanted.

But he could smell nothing. There was no memory of Max’s scent. No memory of Golzine’s. There was just pain at his neck, where the mark still bled, and hands on his backside where Golzine began to push in, and an awful feeling of _rightness_ for obeying, but there was no magic. He hated this. His body needed it but his mind hated everything about it, and that was just it.

There was no mate.

There was no all encompassing rightness of _alpha_.

It was false, it was wrong, and as Golzine crawled up behind him so fast, entered him immediately. The slick made everything easy, the thrusting hit every right spot, and Ash began to moan like the little omega whore he was. 

He was weak.

But he wasn’t in that cell anymore, and there was someone touching him, and so he let his mind fuzz out, let his moans grow louder and more desperate, and rocked back on Golzine’s cock over, and over, and over again.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Max.” Ibe crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, close enough to the door that he had a clear sight on anyone who might be passing by. “It doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not. It’s happening in three days.”

“Ibe, I…” He stuttered to a stop. Ash. He couldn’t leave without Ash. He knew this as fact, as something more real than even the pulse that fluttered in his own veins. He hadn’t seen the omega in three weeks, yet Max knew he was still alive. Max was the lead surgeon and doctor on the compound, and therefore tasked with the horrific job of documenting and disposing of corpses. As cold and graphic as it was, Ash hadn’t been a body he’d burned.

Yet.

There was also still something thrumming within him, this feral anticipation, excitement even. He needed to protect Ash. He needed to protect Ash with every fiber of his being. “I’m just not ready,” he said again,squeezing his eyes tightly closed for a second to center himself. “Ibe, you’ve gotta wait. I just…there’s one…there’s someone I need first.”

Ibe’s face softened for only a moment, before his walls went right back up, eyes steely. “Three days, Max,” he said, then he left the small bedroom.

They’d known each other in the outside world. It was insane to Max how ridiculous the odds were that they’d meet again, after the destruction of the planet, in a situation like this, watching humans destroy humans.

When the world was green, Ibe had been a photographer. He’d been in Afghanistan with Max, photo documenting the atrocities of war. They’d formed a quick and easy friendship—Max also dabbled in photography at home, despite the fact that he was in the war as a medic, and he’d taken just a bit of Japanese out of interest in school, so Ibe enjoyed helping him speak it, though more often than not, this ending in Ibe chiding him for his ungainly American accent. Either way, they’d smiled together.

Which is more than they’d ever done here.

Ibe had told him the story when Max had first arrived at Corsica. He wasn’t fond of speaking about it, but he also wasn’t completely closed off. He’d been mentoring another youth, and they’d been in America when the asteroid hit. It didn’t take them long before they were picked up by mercenaries—his apprentice was an omega, and without suppressants, it was impossible to hide.

They’d been some of the first at Corsica.

Ibe had been immediately conscripted into guard service. A mere beta, he offered nothing to Corsica besides labor.

And Eiji had been fertile. Had been among the first to be housed in what was now the breeding barn.

He’d lived a while. Max hadn’t been here yet, never met him, but Ibe had mentioned that he’d delivered three pups before he died.

It was what fueled the passion within Ibe, what gave him reason to fight for an escape.

It was also what killed the joy in his eyes.

There was a knock at his door, and as Max looked up again in surprise, another guard stepped in. “You’re wanted in Golzine’s quarters,” he said. “His mate needs medical assistance.”

Ash, Max thought again, his heart rising in his throat. “Let me just grab my things.”

***

There were six guards standing outside Golzine’s quarters, and Max didn’t know if this was ordinary, or if there was some heightened state of threat that required the extra security. He’d only been down this hall once before—his first week here, he’d wrapped his hands against the wrists of a young omega girl as she bled out, too fast for him to operate.

Golzine had decided she was his mate. Had raped her until she lost her mind with it. She’d managed to make it into his bathroom and find a pair of scissors, slicing down the meat of her arms twenty or so times, with the bulky blade.

And Max had almost vomited at the stench of omega fear that had coated the room when he’d arrived.

Now, his hands were shaking, his throat felt too thick in his mouth to full form words. He didn’t know why he’d been called, only that Ash was in danger.

“Let him in,” he heard through the doors, and then they opened.

There was a small sitting room in the front, with doors that led to an eventual master bedroom and bathroom. Ash was nowhere to be seen here, but Max could smell him stronger than anything else in the room. The hardwood floors, the wainscotting that framed the walls, the leather chair, the books that were neatly aligned on shelving throughout the room—all were steeped with the scent of Ash. It was caramel sweet, but woody too—a brush or two of juniper, amidst the stronger, sugary notes. A growl rose in his throat, and it was everything he could do to choke it off before it vocalized.

“Slow,” Golzine said. He was seated at a dark, wooden desk, facing Max, dressed in one of his many linen suits—cool, against the heat of the post-apocalyptic sun. “I ordered you here twenty minutes ago.”

Max bowed his head. “I needed to get supplies. I didn’t know what I was coming for.”

“Hmm.” Golzine pulled open the desk drawer and brought out a cigar case, opening it and slowly selecting one. One of the guards moved towards him then, taking it carefully and cutting the end just right, before lighting it and returning it to Golzine.

Max watched as he inhaled, then let out a breath of dark smoke. “He’s broken,” Golzine finally said.

The growl was back. Max wanted to rush the man, to fight him, to take him down and tear at his throat with his bare teeth. “I’m sorry?” he asked instead, proud of the way his voice didn’t even quiver.

“That omega bitch. He’s broken. I mark him every day, and yet it just scabs over, won’t heal, won’t hold.”

There are stories that Max can remember from his youth. Stories about true love, and true bonds, and true mates. In one child’s tale, the Alpha prince is forced to take an omega mate against his will. He tries, and he tries, and the girl tries and she tries, but there can be nothing between them. There is no love, and so there is no mark that will hold. He remembers that it ends with them both jumping from a cliff, dashing themselves against the rocks in ultimate protest to their families.

Gruesome.

But then again, most children’s tales were.

In the real world, it didn’t work this way. It was a fiction, a way to sell true love as a capitalistic concept. Nothing more.

Still, the way his heart was beating, and the way he was starting to sweat, and the way he could barely keep his teeth from baring into fangs, he realized that there was a small part of him that was beginning to hope it might be true. “I need to see him,” he said.

Golzine stood, and walked to the door on the far side of the room. “In here,” he said, pushing the door open and stepping through.

Max followed.

The smell was so thick in his nose now he had room for nothing else, no way to tell where Golzine was but his eyes, no way to breathe in anything other than help me, help me, help me. Ash was there, laying on the bed, naked and gasping for breath. He wasn’t moving, and the bedsheets were pushed all the way down as though they’d just gotten done fucking, but unlike in the case of the girl, there was no blood, there was no sign that Ash was mortally injured. Max almost collapsed in relief.

He grunted, gripped his bag even tighter, and then forced himself to ask permission before rushing the bed. “May I touch the omega, sir?”

Ash was gasping in breaths so fast that Max didn’t think he was actually comprehending anything. His chest was moving ever so slightly, and Max could see the way his ribs showed with every panicked inhalation. It sounded as though he were choking, as though there was something constricting his airway.

“Of course, Doctor Glenreed.” Golzine smiled, but it was a snake’s smile, terrifying and poisonous.

Max just nodded, then moved to the bed, crawling up next to Ash. “Ash,” he whispered.

“You may address him as omega,” Golzine purred, smooth behind that cigar.

Gritting his teeth, Max nodded. “Omega,” he said, his throat tight around the word. “I need you to take a deep breath. You’re—”

Ash squeezed his eyes closed and grabbed Max’s wrist, fingers clenching so tightly it hurt. He managed to shake his head ever so slightly, but kept making that awful wheezing.

“Okay,” Max said, putting his bag down and gently unwrapping Ash’s fingers from his wrist. “Okay, I’m just looking. I just need to see where you’re hurt.”

“It doesn’t matter where he’s hurt,” Golzine droned behind Max. “I want to know what is wrong with the mark. If you can’t fix that, then I’ll find a new doctor who can.”

The threat was evident in his words, and Max knew his time was limited. “I’m so sorry,” he mouthed, bringing his hands back up. From the shallow breathing, and darkening bruises all over his torso, he guessed Ash had at least a broken rib, and his shoulder was back to being a mess again. He wanted to scream. He’d managed to get the bullet out of Ash’s shoulder without any extraneous damage, and it didn’t even matter. The wound was black and greenish—obviously infected—and the chances of Ash regaining full circulation to that hand again were just…gone. They were gone.

It was so, horribly unfair.

But there was nothing he could do about it now, so he returned his gaze to Ash’s neck, to the bruising and rope burn that circled it all the way to the scabbing bite at his neck that still dribbled fresh blood. “I need to see your neck,” he murmured, moving his hands to Ash’s head, and turning it to the side, trying so hard to ignore the whimper from Ash.

The bite was deep. Max could see the barely healed puncture wounds from other bites, he could count at least five of them. Golzine had mentioned marking him every day, and Max could feel the anger surging within him, the hatred, the disgust, the intensely animalistic urge to protect his mate, his mate, his mate—

He closed his eyes.

Swallowed down the pain.

Ash wasn’t his. Ash wasn’t Golzine’s. Ash wasn’t anyone’s he was a person, not property, he was a person who Max had helped keep prisoner.

He reached into his medical bag and brought out the sterile solution and gauze that he always kept nearby. “I’m just cleaning—”

“You don’t have to tell it everything you’re doing,” Golzine snorted.

Three days, Ibe had said. Three days.

Max’s vision narrowed down to just Ash. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered, so quietly that it was only a breath against Ash’s ear.

But Ash stiffened under him and then, ever so slightly, nodded his head. Trusting Max.

He cleaned the wound, noting with displeasure even more puncture wounds beneath the deep, angry scabbing. Then he rubbed some antibiotic on the bite and bandaged it, wrapping gauze gently around Ash’s neck.

“It’s trying to take,” he said, as he climbed off the bed. His stomach was roiling nervously, and he was sweating even more as he lied. “You need to give it time.”

“Bullshit,” Golzine said. “Marks take almost instantaneously. There is an immediate reaction from the omega. They want to be bred. They want to please. They want to be on their knees.”

“Yeah,” Max nodded, chancing a glance over at Ash, and then doubling down on the lie. “And he did. You got a reaction, right? He spread his legs for you. He—”

“They all spread their legs because they’re all whores,” Golzine said. “This has been no different.”

“Ah…” Max swallowed. He needed to say something. To say anything to keep Ash from being any more damaged.

“Alpha…”

Max stiffened, trying desperately not to turn at Ash’s voice. It was so weak, so filled with pain, but there was something there, want…desire…lust.

Golzine turned, eyeing Ash with consideration.

“Alpha…want…need…alpha…” Ash choked off. He turned his head though, just enough to look up.

Directly at Golzine.

Max wanted to vomit, but there was also a quiver of something else there. Hope, maybe. Relief. Ash had picked up on his hint and was playing his part.

Because Golzine was right. The mark hadn’t taken because it wasn’t right. It wasn’t a true mate. The only way to make it stick was to force it enough times that there was no other option, and so Max had lied right to his face.

“I see,” Golzine said. He stubbed out the cigar on a tray that lay precariously perched on a small end table. “You’re dismissed, Glenreed,” he ordered.

Max had no choice but to leave, turning his back on Ash, hoping that Golzine would stop trying for a few more days.

And try desperately to ignore the sound of the bed squeaking as Golzine climbed on top of Ash.

***

“I want Dino.”

Ibe looked up in surprise, as the other men quieted around Max. The only sounds were the shuffling of bodies, and moaning of pain of the barren omegas, chained to the wooden beds.

This had been their meeting spot for a year now—the back offices of the breeding barns. Once a month, the heads of the different factions of rebellion all came here, to place in darkness where alpha’s rarely bothered to come. It stank of human waste, and human sickness, and omega heat, and they all covered their faces against it.

The Alpha’s enjoyed the barren omegas to a point, but once the useless bodies were chained back up again, the alphas wanted nothing to do with the stench. It was as close as the group could get to privacy, and even so, they only chanced it once a month.

Now though. Now that it was almost time, now that everything was about to come to fruition, they met nightly, and Max had to quell the constant anxiety of possible discovery with every bone in his body.

“Two days ago, you told me you wouldn’t be ready,” Ibe started. “Now you tell us that you want to take down the leader? This isn’t the plan, Max, you know—”

“I know,” Max agreed. He crossed his arms, well aware of how menacing he could look in his fatigue pants, upper arm muscles bulging, mouth pressed into a severe scowl. “My plan is better. They’ve already needed me inside Golzine’s room once. It will be easy for me to gain access again under the guise of doctoring A—, his omega.” He corrected at the last moment, but noted the way that Ibe’s eyebrows narrowed. “No one will suspect anything. It’s a hell of a lot better cover than Chris over there forcing himself in to report a riot. Tempers won’t flare. Anger won’t be kindled. They trust me.”

Ibe nodded slowly, though he still studied Max as though well aware of the sudden change in demeanor. “Alright,” he said. “Makes sense. You get Golzine.”

“The guards will need to be taken care of,” Max added.

“They will be.”

Nodding, Max quieted, and listened as the leads all went over the ins and outs of their positions one last time. It was a terrifying gambit to run, but they had enough power from the beta serving class here in Corsica. It shouldn’t pose much of a problem to topple the elite. The biggest issue they had was incapacitating them long enough to gain enough distance to stand any sort of chance at freedom.

Which is why explosives were being set.

It made Max sick to his stomach, and he’d argued with Ibe over it from day one. They couldn’t save all of the omegas. Ibe had plans to move through the barn with a small group of betas and free who was there, but any who were in Alpha rooms were to be left. Any who were pregnant and in the care of the upper levels of Corsica were to be left.

At Max’s current count, that was 13 lives.

Soon to be 13 deaths.

He could already see the blood on his hands, dripping thick at his feet and pooling on the cement.

“Where are we at on siphoned medical equipment?” Ibe asked, and Max was suddenly jerked back to cognizance.

“Behind,” he answered. “You know I’ve been being followed. They don’t trust—”

“You just sold me on you being trusted enough to make it into Golzine’s rooms. And now you’re telling me that they follow you?”

“Well…” Shit. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up in front of everyone. He hadn’t wanted to tell Ibe until the last possible second but…

“It’s fine,” Ibe said.

Max gawked at him.

“We’re good,” Ibe called out to the men. “Tomorrow. 9 pm. You know your places, make sure you follow through.”

And then men and women began funneling out of the room. Max watched as they left, noting how none of them looked to the sick and desperate omegas in the beds right next to them. His heart ached with it, but he knew he could trust Ibe enough to try and help them survive. The last woman went quietly through the door, and then Ibe turned on him.

“What are you hiding from me?”

Sighing, Max forced his gaze up to his friend. “There’s an omega I’m going to save,” he said.

“Yes,” Ibe replied. “There are 17 omegas we’re going to save.”

“18,” Max corrected.

Ibe’s eyes narrowed.

“Golzine’s mate. I’m taking him with me. And I’m not going to be coming with you—I won’t be following the paths we set. I’m heading north instead.”

“What—”

Max held out a hand and Ibe silenced. “You don’t need to worry about medical supplies. I’ve pilfered a bare minimum for myself—you will still have everything we discussed. And I know this is asking a lot of you, but Ibe…”

“He’s more than just an omega, isn’t he?”

Max nodded, his chest suddenly tight upon hearing the words.

“Of course,” Ibe said gruffly, looking down at the cement, suddenly unable to meet Max’s eyes. “Sure. Take him. Get as far as you can, Max.”

“I’m so sorry, Ibe,” Max started.

“Don’t.”

The silence lay so heavy between them in that moment that Max could feel the weight of it, could feel the burden that it was on Ibe. If the fairytales were to be believed, then there was only one true mate. After that? There could only be loneliness and heartbreak.

That was childish and utterly too black and white. But Max also was beginning to believe the bones of the stories. Ibe might find happiness again, but losing Eiji had hardened him, turned him into a warrior, where once he was just a poet.

And there was nothing Max could ever say that would change him back.

Ibe drew a breath in then, loud enough to stir the air. “Don’t fuck up.” he said.

“Thank you,” Max whispered.

Ibe nodded, then turned to work the wheel of the cement door, finally pushing it open. He was one step through before he turned back. “Max?” he asked.

Max watched him.

“Please don’t die,” Ibe said.

There was a moment in the desert, that they lay together under the stars. Ibe pointed out where the north star appeared from his view in Japan as to where they lay in Afghanistan. Max wasn’t able to do such a thing, he’d never paid attention in astronomy and it showed. So Ibe guided his hand, finger pointed high, along the outlines of the constellations and told him stories, myths, about the beginnings of the earth—the dutiful Alpha lion who protected the world, the omega sheep who herded the children of God into a beautifully curving line. None of this really mattered, none of the secondary genders, none of the animals chosen to represent them. What mattered was human closeness.

What mattered was that Max had shot down a child that day. His unit had been under heavy fire, and he’d been armed, and men were dying all around him and there was nothing to do but shoot.

And as they’d lay down together, his arms had still been shaking. His heart was still high in his throat. He was smiling, because he always smiled, but the ringing in his ears of gunfire wouldn’t cease.

Until Ibe began to talk. Until Max began to listen. Until their palms touched, and he let Ibe trace mythological animals in the sky.

“Please don’t die,” Max repeated.

Ibe nodded once, and the door closed behind him.

***

There was silence.

The compound wasn’t loud, under normal circumstances, but this was an eery silence—a silence of the dead, of the damned.

Max picked his way over the slumped bodies of the guards in the corridor that led to Golzine’s room. They’re bodies were relaxed, peaceful, not yet dead.

It was a poison that one of Ibe’s men had calculated. He’d been a chemist in a former life, a big name at a bigger University. Here, as the earth died, he was a beta and nothing more.

Until now.

The poison was designed to work slowly—to incapacitate immediately, but then ease the sleeper into death. Max knew that within hours, the halls would start to stink, the corpse would start to pull in rigor, and there would be no hiding the fact that a rebellion had occurred.

The door to Golzine’s room was open, and as Max nudged the body of the lead guard out of the path of the door, he turned the knob.

Once inside, the air was fresh, and clean. The sitting room hadn’t changed at all, and Max remembered the figure of Golzine sitting at the desk and chastising him. He gripped the revolver tighter between his hands. They weren’t able to poison Golzine’s water. There was a tester for that—like medieval times. The paranoia of the old man was absolutely ridiculous to navigate, but it ended up serving Max anyhow.

If they’d chosen to poison Golzine, there was a chance that Ash might have sipped from the cup, and…

Max swallowed. Even the thought of it made him nauseous.

But Golzine wasn’t in the sitting room, and instead, Max could hear the faint sound of flesh hitting flesh, and the even fainter groaning.

His teeth clenched together and this time, he didn’t try to stop the growl that pushed its way from his lungs. He raised the revolver, stepped towards the inner door, and when the next loud, moan of sound came, he kicked it down and shot.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Then he watched as Golzine’s corpse slid from Ash’s body, blood leaking slowly from the back of his head.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! Please remember to give the artists a follow:
> 
> [Salmon](twitter.com/sushisalmon95)   
>  [Trickster](https://twitter.com/tricksterdraws)
> 
> <3 Coop

His head hurt.

Ash tried to blink his eyes closed for just a second, but Max kept pulling at his arm, kept pulling him forward, and he couldn’t stop moving. “Hurts,” he managed, his tongue swollen in his mouth, his entire body desperate for water.

“Just keep going,” Max said.

He didn’t look back at Ash, and he sounded just as exhausted. Ash grit his teeth and forced himself to push on, to put one leg in front of the next and just go. With every step he took, his head pounded—an unceasing throbbing that pushed against his eyes. His arm was hanging uselessly by his side, the pain from it sharp, not dulling, eating away at him enough that he’d already had to stop to puke more than once.

But he kept going.

He could smell Max. He could smell Max’s desperation, Max’s terror, but he could also smell Max’s hope.

The landscape around them had been barren for what felt like days. There was nothing but dirt. He could tell that they were moving uphill for a while, because his legs started to burn with it, but the horizon stayed the same—a flat, brown line that the sun moved towards. 

He didn’t know where they were going. 

At first, he hadn’t asked because he was still shell-shocked, still wiping blood and chunks of matter from his face, still clutching a hand to his neck at the mark that throbbed in pain. The bond was never good, but severing it? It was as though he were nothing at all. As though one moment there were colors, and then nothing but grey.

He knew Max was screaming at him to move, he could see the man’s mouth, but nothing seemed to matter but dying.

Ash remembered sitting up slowly. He remembered touching his fingers to his temple, and watching the blood run from them as he took them away again. And then he remembered very clearly, his words.

“Let me die.”

He’d repeated it when Max came forward. He’d started to scream it as Max picked him up, as Max carried him from the room, as Max started to run.

Now it was only a memory. A spot within himself that if he prodded too hard, might become inflamed. He tried to stay away from it.

Death wasn’t something he’d ever wanted before Corsica.

He’d heard of people committing suicide after the asteroid. People who’d lost their family, people who’d lost their mates, people who looked around at a barren landscape with air that was poisonous to breathe and knew they’d given up.

It wasn’t something he held against people, it just wasn’t a concept that he was familiar with feeling. There was no reason to die, when there was so much of the world still to see.

Now, it was a darkness within himself. Something that welled up when he least expected it. Something he wished he could excise, cut out, burn.

“Ash.”

He looked up, shuddering to a stop. “Mmm?”

“There.” 

Max pointed, and Ash could see his finger trembling with fatigue. He looked that direction though, and there. There on the horizon. There was a chasm that cut through the earth, deep and scar like. A river must have run through at some point with forces strong enough to carve stone. 

He managed to nod his head, though he wasn’t sure what exactly Max was trying to tell him. There were small areas of sagebrush here, but there were no real trees, nothing to indicate that life might live here. Even if there were a small abandoned farm or house that he’d seen, the gorge was in plain view of anyone for miles around. 

But Max’s scent was easing again, and Ash found himself trusting the man. He wanted to hate. But instinct was warring within his body and he was having a harder and harder time fighting it.

They walked another twenty minutes, finally getting close enough to the gorge that Ash could see down inside of it. It too was brown, and dead, but far below, so far he almost thought his eyes were playing tricks, he could see a trickle of water. 

He stepped even further, toes on the very edge. “Oh,” he said, pulling the stolen gas mask from his mouth far enough to let the sound escape. 

“We made it,” Max said, stepping up next to him.

The water was so far away that they couldn’t even hear the sound of it, but the sight of it just made Ash want to sit down and cry. Fresh water, running, rippling, moving steadily enough that there was green growing near it, and there were probably fish, and other animals, and…it was life.

It was life, and it has been so long since he’d seen any sign of it.

“There’s a path somewhere around here,” Max said, brushing his hair out of his face and leaving a streak of dirt across his forehead.

“Path,” Ash echoed. He closed his eyes, re-centering the mask around his mouth, and held his injured arm tightly against his stomach. “You’ve been here before?” he asked, his voice now hollow as it pushed at the plastic.

“Yeah,” Max said. “I came through this way years ago. Was going to bring Jessica and Michael back, once he was well enough. But…well.” 

His fingers curled into fists, and Ash turned his head just enough to see Max take a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

“There’s a small shelter here,” he said finally. “It’s built into the face of the ravine. No one can see it from up here, no one can see it from the sky, it’s entirely encased in cement so no one will even smell you when…well. When you go into heat. Or when I go into rut.”

His ears actually tinge pink at that, and Ash wrinkled his nose. Max had been so steady back at the compound. So formal, so sterile in his explanations. Now, he was having trouble completing thoughts, having trouble focusing. Ash didn’t know if it was pure exhaustion or if it was something else entirely.

And if it was something else entirely…he didn’t know how he felt about it. 

“How far is the nearest town?” he asked, trying to force his mind to clear, to think.

“Oh.” Max shuffled for a moment, looking up at the setting sun, a wrinkle creasing his brow. “I’m not sure. Not very close. Why?”

Ash took a step back, the view dizzying. “I need suppressants,” he said. There was only a soft breeze around them, just enough to lift the hair off the back of Ash’s neck for a moment, then drop it back softly. Max didn’t say anything further, so Ash pressed on. “I need them soon. I don’t know when another heat will hit.”

“Right,” Max finally responded quietly. “It takes them a little while to settle into a pattern. It could come at any time, or it could be months.”

“It’s coming soon,” Ash bit out. “You stink.”

Max laughed, but it was a stilted, awkward thing on the air. “The suppressants...they just aren’t good for you, Ash. You’ve already cauterized your insides with them. You can’t bear pups,—”

“I don’t fucking want pups. I want suppressants.”

“They’ll kill you.”

Max’s voice was firm, but wasn’t not command firm. Even so, there was a thread of something there that was so utterly sad, so completely broken, that Ash found himself wanting to whine, wanting to press up against the alpha and nose at his throat, make him feel better, make him…

“Fuck!” Ash yelled, listening to the echo against the rocks. “Fuck,” he murmured, quiet this time in the wake of all his emotion. He stared across the chasm, the far side of it swimming in his vision from the temperature, or exhaustion, or maybe there were tears in his eyes. “I don’t want this. I was fine. Everything was fine.”

“You were scavenging ruined cities for drugs while being hunted by mercenaries. Do you think Corsica is the only compound out there? Do you think that now that Golzine’s gone, the worlds just a great place, ready for anything, full of Alphas and Betas who want to help you?”

He sounded so earnest, so desperate to help. But Ash didn’t want to be helped. “Fuck you,” he bit off. He wanted things to go back to normal. To when everyone thought he was a beta. 

To when his body didn’t betray him.

“No. Ash.” Max grabbed him by his good shoulder and turned him, forcing them together, forcing Ash to look up into his blue eyes. “You’re an omega. You’re going to be hunted. Until you’re mated and marked, you’ll be wanted by any Alpha or Beta who finds you or catches whiff of your scent on the wind. What happened at Corsica can happy again just as easily if you’re off on your own. And I’m sorry. It sucks, and I’m sorry that the world is shit. I’m so sorry.”

The sun was falling fast, casting long shadows onto the lip of the gorge. They danced around the pair, flickering like firelight ghosts, lighting Max’s features in one breath, and casting them in darkness the next. 

Max smelled damp, like dark soil as it soaks in the rain, and Ash wanted nothing more than to lean into it.

“Stay here?” Max whispered. He lifted the mask from his face, casting it to the dirt. “Stay with me? I’ll protect you, I’ll—”

“I don’t need protection,” Ash growled.

“Right.” Max leaned in, eyes always on Ash, bright, and questing, as though asking for permission.

“I don’t need protection,” Ash said quieter, but he nodded carefully. Slowly.

And Max carefully raised Ash’s mask, then tucked his head under Ash’s chin, pressing his nose against the bandaging, lips brushing over the bruising Dino had left. He didn’t bare his teeth. He didn’t push against Ash’s skin, grab a hold of Ash’s body tightly. He barely moved at all, except for the fluttering warmth of his breath at Ash’s scent gland. “Stay with me,” he breathed against Ash, voice no more than a murmur of sound.

Ash was too tired for this. He was exhausted, he was hurting, he wanted to lie down right where they were and sleep for weeks, and wake up real. Not this thing, not an omega, not an it.

Somewhere, in the back of Ash’s mind, Dino was screaming at him. Arthur was growling at him. Men were cuffing him and spraying him in the face and laughing when he cried, and— 

He shuddered, and Max let go immediately, stepping back. 

“Ash?”

Ash couldn’t look at him. His eyes were starting to brim with tears, and he was so pissed off, he couldn’t control anything. He was stuck out here in the desert with another fucking alpha, and no sign of a city, no suppressants, and everything hurt, everything hurt, everything…

Smelled of earth. 

“Sorry,” Ash sniffed, raising a hand and wiping at his nose. “I’m sorry. I can’t…I can’t…”

“No,of course not...shit,” Max hissed, eyes squeezing closed and fist pressing against his forhead. “No, I’m sorry,” he corrected, softer this time, less intense. “Here, can you sit? Can you…” Max reached up and carefully placed Ash’s mask around his mouth again. “Can you sit? I just need to find the trail, and then we can get inside. You need sleep, and liquid, and we both need food. I just need to…” he looked past Ash a second, then turned the other way, as though trying to reorient himself. “Sit, okay?”

It was overwhelming. Too many feelings. Too many smells. Too many emotions. Ash carefully lowered himself to the ground, putting out a hand to steady himself and trying so hard to ignore the piercing, aching pain of his infected shoulder. “I’m okay,” he said quietly. 

Max looked relieved. He shouldered off his pack, setting it beside Ash. “There’s more water in there. Drink what you need, okay? I’ll be back soon.” Then he turned and started walking the line of the chasm.

Ash watched until he disappeared.

***

The little shelter was even bigger than Max had lead Ash to believe. 

There was a crudely constructed path that led from the top of the chasm all the way down, snaking this way, then that. Parts were so skinny that you could barely fit two feet next to each other, and there was no handrail at all, so the entire walk was a nerve wracking, terrifying, death-defying journey.

It came with a huge reward though.

Someone, probably someone with a very large amount of money, had blown into the cliff face, and then constructed a fallout shelter large enough to hold a decent sized bedroom, a small living area, a bathroom completely with shower, and a kitchen. Amazingly, there was even running water that worked.

Max shuffled about nervously citing something about an intricate well system that they must have devised to pull from the water at the bottom of the chasm, but Ash could tell right from the bat that he didn’t have a fucking clue what he was talking about.

And Ash didn’t really care. He took a shower.

A real shower.

Not hot—the water system wasn’t that complex—but not the heavy, bruising stream of the power washer, not with Dino at his side, touching him and licking him and biting him. A real shower, by himself.

He almost cried.

He was careful not to get his shoulder wet, even though the bandaging around it was yellowing and foul–full of puss and discharge. Max would take care of it later. After this. Ash scrubbed his hair with one hand so hard he thought he might pull it all from his head. He swore he could still smell Dino’s cum on him. He swore he was still sticky with it, that it coated him, marking him for Corsica and nothing more. So he scrubbed, and scrubbed, until his skin was red, until he was shivering uncontrollably in the water.

After, as he was drying off with an actual towel, Max knocked on the door.

“Ash?”

Ash’s hackles immediately went up, his entire body tensed, on the offensive. “What?” he pushed out.

“Are you able…would you be willing to let me look at your arm?”

Oh. Nothing else. Ash closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally again, but his heart wouldn’t stop racing. He was naked and there was an alpha just on the other side of the door.

He’d never known fear like this before Corsica.

He’d never imagined that he could possibly be this helpless.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. He shrugged into a loose pair of black sweatpants that they’d found in the closet by the bathroom. Towels, bedding, and random clothing items that whoever had once lived here had stored carefully.

The pants hung so low on his hips they almost fell off, and there was no drawstring, so Ash held them to himself as he carefully opened the door. “Where?” he asked, forcing his eyes to meet Max’s though every instinct inside of him was telling him to submit, to look at the floor, to expose his neck.

“Bed?” Max asked.

Every muscle in his body tightened as he flinched. “S..sorry,” Ash mumbled, finally giving in and letting his eyes fall to the ground.

“No, no, it’s fine. Not bed. That’s fine. Uh…” Max looked around them, hand at the back of his neck, scratching the skin red. “Shit, I need—”

“Bed is fine,” Ash bit out, swallowing thickly. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay. It was very much not okay. He wanted to vomit just thinking about lying on a bed again, he wasn’t able to stop the way his hands were starting to shake, but there wasn’t another option. There was, strangely, overhead lighting in the bedroom that still functioned, but the rest of the shelter relied on the small camp lights they’d found in the cupboard.

Those wouldn’t be enough. Max had to be able to see.

Ash forced himself to movement, gripping his sweatpants to himself as he kneed up onto the bed. “Where?” he asked again.

“Can you lie down for me?”

Ash swallowed again, then nodded, a small little thing. Then he tried to settle himself on his back as comfortably as possible.

“Good job, Ash,” Max said, in his low, throaty growl of a voice.

And a wash of pleasure overtook Ash, hot against his flesh. This was happiness. This pure joy. He’d pleased his alpha and his alpha loved him, and Ash was good, he was good, he was—” “Stop,” he whimpered, the word a terrified, quivering sound. 

Max paused, frozen in the act of laying out the medical equipment that he’d stolen from Corsica. “Ash?” he asked.

“Just…” Ash closed his eyes, and fought it. Fought the urge to accept the kindness, fought the desire his body suddenly wanted so badly. “Don’t use commands? Please. Please don’t use commands.”

“I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry.” Max sounded flustered now, and actually apologetic. “I know, I’m not trying to. I’m sorry, I’m really not trying to. I’ll do better.”

Ash barked out a pain filled laugh at that. He was completely helpless. Close enough to a heat again that a strong enough command from even an alpha who wasn’t his mate would force Ash into submission. The thought of an alpha not using that? Not giving into the urge to control another human being? 

It was ridiculous.

“I’m serious. I’ll do better.” Max fell silent then, finishing setting the equipment up, but Ash noticed the way his hands were white, the way he clenched fists when he wasn’t holding anything. Max was carrying a tension too, Max was also trying not to give into instinct.

And with that finally realization, that hit him with all the weight of a boulder, Ash knew with unflinching certainty that this was a man he could trust. He was an alpha, he’d made horrible mistakes, but he was trying. 

He was trying.

Ash closed his eyes and let Max move his arm up a bit, biting off a yelp of pain at the jostling.

“Sorry,” Max said quietly.

Ash couldn’t say anything. His teeth were clenched so hard he thought they might break.

As Max carefully cut away bandaging, dripping water against the cloth as he went, Ash nearly bit his lip clean through trying not to scream in pain. It was awful. It was nothing more than a simple bullet wound, clean through his body, but Golzine had locked him up in a cell for a week without any treatment, and then he’d pulled Ash into his quarters where he used the foul spot as further torment, pushing in against his shoulder any time he wanted to watch Ash scream.

And now he’d been wearing the same, crusty wrappings for weeks, terrified to move at all because of the sickening pain that rushed through his body. He didn’t want anyone near him. He wanted to bare his fangs, to growl, to strike out with everything he had–

_He’s helping you_ , his mind protested. _He’s helping you._

“Shit,” Max muttered, gripping around Ash’s wrist tighter, and holding him still. “Try not to move, okay? I know it hurts, I know.”

Ash was making a wheezing, panicky sound out his nose, and really, he was just trying not to throw up. At some point, Max got all the bandages off, and then set to work cleaning around the wound, and that’s when Ash really did start losing it, gagging, and throwing his head to the side.

“So close, kid. You’re so close, hang in there, okay?” 

Max’s voice was rhythmic, gentle and soothing, and Ash tried to focus in on that, tried not think about what might happen if the infection was too bad, if he might lose feeling in his entire arm, if he might lose the arm all together. He started to whine, and it pierced the air, loud and full of pain. 

“So close,” Max said. “So close, so close—”

And then it was over. Max was standing back up, stripping off the gloves he wore that were covered in Ash’s blood. Ash sucked in breath through his nose, not trusting himself to open his mouth yet. His cheeks were wet with tears, but he was breathing, and he was alive, and it was over.

“Hey,” Max said, coming to the other side of the bed and kneeling down so they were eye to eye. “You did really good, okay? But I think there’s going to be some lasting nerve damage.”

Ash closed his eyes, pressed them so tight he saw stars instead of black behind them. 

“Ash, hey, stay with me,” Max said.

There was a rustling sound, and then Max’s hand was in his hair, carding it back, fingers gently circling against his scalp. 

“Hey, kid. You okay?”

There it was. That _kid_ thing again. It didn’t feel so anonymous anymore though, it felt more personal, almost sacred. Ash didn’t want to open his eyes, but he nodded carefully, unwilling to dislodge Max’s touch.

“Okay. There’s going to be some damage. You might lose feeling in your hand, or maybe just a finger or two. But you aren’t going to lose the arm. It’s going to be alright, okay? I’ve got it wrapped again and we’re just going to do our best not to move it at all. You hear me? Not an inch.”

His hand just kept going around, and around, and Ash could feel the tension leaking from his muscles, he was so sleepy, so tired…

“You did so good,” Max crooned.

Ash was too tired to tell him to stop. Too tired to care. He just let Max’s touch lull him into a deep, deep sleep.

***

_He can’t breathe._

_Golzine is laying on top of him, hands around Ash’s neck, thrusting into him again and again, the fat, wet sounds of it filling the room._

_“Please,” he gasps out, but Golzine just raises a hand up and smacks him across the face, so hard he bites through his lip._

_He has to stop crying. He has to stop struggling, he needs to just still his body and let this happen but he can’t. He can’t breathe, he can’t stop trying to live, he just wants air, he wants—_

_“My little omega bitch,” Golzine snarls in his ear. “How do you like this? How do you like taking my fat cock deep inside of you?” He finally releases his hold on Ash’s neck and moves a hand to Ash’s belly, pushing hard against him. “I can feel my cock inside of you,” he growls. “I’m going to knot you and fill you with my seed and…ahhh….ahhh…”_

_He keeps going, but everything is erratic now, Golzine is groaning with pleasure, and Ash knows it won’t be long. It can’t be long. “Mmmm,” he whines, pushing his head back against the mattress and trying to ignore his alphas hand. Tries to ignore the way that he feels stretched, and distended, and wrong._

_“Ahh,” Golzine moans, finally jerking hard against Ash._

_Ash can feel Golzine’s knot swelling. It’s big, and then bigger, and then almost too much for him to take, but horribly? There’s a pleasure in it too. A desperate desire to be closer to his alpha, to make his alpha happy, to make his alpha love him._

_“Alpha,” Ash moans, closing his eyes tight and trying not to think._

_Golzine smacks him again, this time against the ear, and Ash yelps in pain. “Shut up,” he commands._

_And Ash does._

_He’s familiar with this. With the horrible warmth deep inside of him, with the pooling desire in his groin, with the desperation to please his alpha. He needs more. He has to have more, he needs to be touched, he needs to be kissed, he needs to be loved, and every time Golzine knots him, he has to fight back the waves of panic that he has to go through this again—he has to wait it out with nothing, with his alpha refusing to look at him._

_He’s crying quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks, but Golzine doesn’t care. The mark Golzine keeps leaving won’t take, and so Golzine doesn’t feel Ash’s fear, Ash’s pain. Alpha’s don’t feel much of anything until they’ve either found their future mate, or they’ve marked someone and it’s stuck._

_Golzine leans down and licks at Ash’s face, tongue striping up his cheek. “Stop crying,” he growls in Ash’s ear._

_Ash presses his eyes closed tight and takes in a shuddering breath, trying to quell the rising panic in his stomach._

_“Stop crying,” Golzine growls again. “I have a cell with your name on it. I can send you there. Maybe let Arthur finally have his way with you? He’s been begging me.”_

_Ash can’t stop the way his body flinches at that, the way his muscles tense with fear. “No,” he whispers._

_There’s a dark fuzzing of everything and in the way dreams do, he’s flung backward in time, locked in the cell with his wrists above his hand, thrusting into the air and desperate, frantic with need._

_“No,” he moans. “No, stop—”_

_The door creaks open, and Arthur’s scent is a frightening, tangible thing. Ash jerks away from it. “No,” he says again. “No, no, no—”_

_“Ash,”_

_“No!”_

_“Ash,_

_“No!”_

“Ash!”

He threw himself up, wincing at the pull in his shoulder and blinked eyes open slowly, the grey vestiges of the dream clinging to him like spiderwebs. “No,” he whispered, the shape of the word still on his tongue.

There was a new scent now—like leaves, like bark—and it was filling the room, seeping into every breath he took. “Max,” he tried, his voice harsh and full of sleep. Ash pushed himself back with one hand until he hit the wall.

“Ash,” Max said again. He reached out, then stopped, fingertips just shy of brushing against Ash’s forehead. “I could smell you,” he said, blue eyes piercing and full of concern.

“Sorry,” Ash mumbled, looking down. “Dream.”

“I know. But…” Max let the sentence die, still hovering somewhere between touch and between nothingness. “Can I touch you?” he asked.

Can I touch you?

Ash threw a hand up to his face, trying to hide the fact that his eyes were filling with tears. “No,” he managed. He couldn’t control himself, he couldn’t control his emotions, the dream was still heavy around him, threatening to pull him back under at any moment and he…

He…

He sniffled, drawing up his knees, then pushing his head into his arm, not able to look at Max. “…’m sorry,” he murmured, voice thick with tears. “I…just…I…”

“It’s alright,” Max said. He let his hand drop, but stayed crouched on the balls of his feet, the canvas bottoms of his fatigue pants brushing the floor. “It’s just nightmares.”

“No,” Ash said. “It’s everything. It’s…I’m not me anymore.” He pulled his knees tighter to him, trying to fight through the sobs that were threatening to break free. “I’m something different now. Something..weak. I used to…I used to be…”

“Powerful?” Max asked. 

Ash laughed against his knees, a shuddery sort of thing. “I know. It’s stupid. Omega’s aren’t powerful. But I used to have some sort of control. And now…”

“I used to be powerful too.”

Ash didn’t say anything, just let the words sit between them for a moment. Then Max moved, easing himself over to the wall and sitting next to Ash, not touching him at all. 

“Alphas are strong. Alphas are powerful. They are supposed to be able to protect the ones they love.”

“And you didn’t,” Ash said. 

“And I didn’t,” Max repeated.

His voice sounded broken, almost as though he were also on the verge of tears. Ash wanted not to care. He wanted so badly to tell Max to ‘fuck off’ to seperate, to pick his own way through the wreckage of the country and _survive_. 

But there was something more between them now.

Ash shrugged, still not picking his head up from his arm, shoulders still shaking through his tears. “You did your best,” he offered.

“So did you,” Max replied.

The silence stretched so long, Ash was certain he’d fallen back into dream, but then Max let out a heavy, shuddering sigh.

Ash snuck a look over, watching how Max had thrown his head back against the wall, so utterly defeated. He wiped the wetness from his cheeks, then scooched closer and lay his head on Max’s shoulder. Max jolted in surprise, but Ash just nuzzled next to him, the familiar scent filling his nose, relaxing the tension from his body.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was safe.

Somewhere outside, the trilling buzz of insects cut through the front door of their bunker. 

Somewhere inside, Max’s arm circled around Ash’s shoulders, and his head dropped on top of Ash’s head, and they very quietly, fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](twitter.com/agentcoop1)


End file.
